Rise of the Sky God
by PerseusJFAN1016
Summary: Adopted from: The Page Master Eternal. Percy's unexpected journey after the Giant War. He gains new tricks and new companions and learns many valuable lessons. The first 16 chapters belong to the original author. I do not own the Percy Jackson series, books, or characters.
1. Chapter 1

Percy

Fighting raged everywhere around me.

The Hunters, the Romans, and the Greeks all working together to prevent the rise of Gaea.

And of course, the gods had finally joined us.

After months of hard work, which had gotten me dragged into Tartarus, they were finally spurred into action.

It was quite beautiful in a danced across the skies striking against the giants directly. The strongest of us, the seven, aided them.

The rest of our brethren repelled the massive armies that were being throw against us, intent on preserving the original Olympus.

One by one the giants fell before us, until only Porphyrion was left.

I was currently being occupied by around one hundred Earthborn, who had formed after I had slain the last giant.

As I destroyed them by the dozens through a combination of swordplay and my power, I could see out of the corners of my eyes how the fight against Porphyrion was going.

In a brief summary? Not good.

I saw Hazel being knocked off Arion and Frank being swatted out of the air. Porphyrion currently had his attention on Piper, no doubt to cause Jason grief, and kept trying to blast her with lightning.

Thanks to the past few months she was quick enough to avoid it, but I could tell she was tiring.

Jason was using his power over the wind to dart around the giant's body, but it was as if he was a gnat. For that was the amount of attention that Porphyrion brought to bear on him.

Annabeth was nowhere to be seen, though I was not really concerned about it. I had fought along side her many times before, and turning invisible was the norm for her.

The only other person that I did not see was Leo. Again I was less than worried, as he would most likely be wrecking havoc in the Argo II.

Sure enough, Annabeth appeared on the giants foot, stabbing it with her dagger, and the Argo II floating into my view range, with Leo clearly at the helm. Coach Hedge was on a bastille, shooting at everything in sight. Gods knews how he hadn't hit any of our allies yet.

Then everything went from bad to worse, Porphyrion finally spun around due to Jason getting too close, and smacked, literally smacked, into the ground.

Due to how fast he had turned, Annabeth was thrown into Piper and both girls tumbled an additional ten feet from where Piper was standing before they came to a stop.

Coach kept trying to blast the giant,but Porphyrion seemed to take it all in stride. He pointed his spear and aimed at the Argo II.

He would have probably destroyed it if Coach hadn't managed to land a smoke bomb right on his face. His aim was thrown off, so the Argo II wan't destroyed, just extremely damaged.

It began quickly making a tactical retreat, with Coach taking the wheel, and Leo trying to run in all directions on the deck. Clearly he was tried to keep the ship from falling apart, but I couldn't see what happened next.

I had finally killed all of these Earthborn, and I was itching to get back in the fight.

As I ran towards Porphyrion, the gods continued to throw all they had at him, but it was clear they were tiring. Not to mention they didn't seem to be doing any serious damage anyway.

Porphyrion stomped over to where Jason had fallen, and with a bellowing laugh, aimed his spear at him. The spear started to glow and the gods became desperate.

I saw several swooping lower and lower, always pulling up at the last minute due to earthen hands that sprouted from the ground trying to grab them.

Eventually Artemis,bold goddess that she is, decided to go for it. She moved as fast as light, ready to pull her half-brother out of danger.

I was not surprised in the least when those accursed hands latched on to her body, and she let out at snarl of rage and began to fight them.

The hand held fast though, and there was no amount of struggling that could free her from them as they began to draw her into the ground, Gaea intending to absorb her power.

I was still to far to do anything with my blade, but I still could use my powers.

I knew my father would have done this better than I ever could, but he could not get close to the ground without being caught himself.

I knew I had only seconds to act, as Artemis was almost half way in the ground shouting at Apollo to not get close. The sun god kept trying to get close to grab onto her, and had almost been caught twice himself.

Jason was not in a much better situation as I could tell that Porphyrion was almost ready to blast him, he had just been building the suspense.

"Thank the gods he loves theatrics as much as Zeus," I thought as I stabbed Riptide into the ground.

Everything began shaking, the armies of Gaea and my allies were both stumbling trying not to fall. The quakes they felt were nothing compared to the shock wave I sent towards Porphyrion and Artemis.

"So considerate of them to be so close together," I remarked to myself.

The power I released being enough to break the earthen grasp on Artemis, who immediately took to the air again, and to throw Porphyrion off balance. His blast of dark lightning going wide and destroying a legion of dark centaurs much to my amusement.

Porphyrion managed to regain his footing and glared at me. "I would take much pleasure in fighting you myself child of the seas. Unfortunately, one greater than me wishes that honor."

I froze at that, my confidence evaporating. "Greater than you?" I asked warily, understandable because the Giants had a huge ego. They thought none where above them, except for one, and I began to pale.

"Yes little demigod," Porphyrion said, seeing the blood leave my face, "My mother wishes to express her feelings towards you. In person."

With that he turned to face the gods while I heard said gods shouting at me to run, loudest being my father, and surprisingly Artemis.

I didn't have time to think on it though, but I knew running would be pointless.

I was on Gaea's domain, and there wasn't any easy way off of that at the moment.

And then 'she' rose up from the earth to face me, and I swear I heard thunder, which was entirely possible, and an impending sense of doom.


	2. Chapter 2

Percy

When I had see her before, Gaea's form was made entirely of earthen materials.

Her clothes, her skin, the works. But not anymore. Now I began to see how close she was to rising.

She had the same form her avatars had used, but that was where the similarities stopped.

Her skin was as smooth as marble, and the color of it as well. She wore armor instead of her usual dress, clearly made out of slate, and formed in ways that I could tell would not hinder her movement.

But her eyes where the creepiest of all. No one had truly seen them opened, until now of course, and I was the lucky one to be on the receiving end of them. Go me right?

They were continually shifting, showing all the different colors of soil and rock. And lets not forget brimming with hate and anger, once again directed at yours truly.

"Perseus Jackson," she said slowly, sounding out every syllable and clearly expressing her hatred of me.

"You have been a thorn in my side for far to long. You prevented Kronos's rise to power, and now on the cusp of our victory here, you seek to do the same. Your interference, shall end now!"

With that said, a blade made purely out of earth leapt from the ground and into her hands. Held together by the will of the earth mother, I knew it was as dangerous as any blade I had faced before.

And with a flash of satisfaction in her eyes, she raised the blade to her shoulder and seemed to glide over the ground at incredible speeds toward me swinging the blade towards my neck.

I leaned backwards as she practically flew past me then, after straitening myself out, turned to face her and attacked with everything I had left.

One thing you should know about Gaea, she may sleep the most out of all the deities, but she was the best swordsman I had fought in my young life.

No matter what I did, she was easily able to repel, and honestly I was surprised I could attack at all with how much power I had to put into my defensive techniques.

I couldn't even match her strike for strike, so great was her strength. I was barely able to alter the path of her strikes to prevent them from hitting me.

Knowing she had the advantage over me, Gaea continued to push me backwards, while I did my best to prevent my steady retreat from being to fast.

The last thing I needed was for her to position me in an area with bad footing or worse, a tree.

When she realized that I was taking great care not to be put in a bad position, she abruptly changed tactics.

I felt the earth I was standing on become soft, and without even looking down I knew that I was standing on now moist earth, which meant that earthen hands would be trying to drag me down any moment now.

Not really wanting to use any more energy that I had to, but knowing I didn't have a choice, I created a disc at my feet that acted as a very violent mini earthquake.

The disc was only about a meter in diameter, so I wouldn't be wasting power. The parts I stood on where quite and supportive, while the area my feet didn't touch looked like the ground was having a massive party with how it rolled and bounced.

It did the trick though, the earthen hands couldn't get close enough to grab me. They were destroyed even when they tried going over the disc.

This irritated Gaea ,of course, and she pushed me harder than ever.

I was pure defense now, and Gaea knew it. It was all I could do to parry and dodge her, while keeping up my earthquake zone to prevent an ungracious death off of my feet.

Just as I thought I was finally going to die, due to my defenses being close to overwhelmed, we both heard a cry of anguish.

Both of us looked towards it as one, for it was the death cry of Porphyrion.

The giant appeared to have his head set on fire by Leo somehow, while the rest of the seven had pummeled the other parts of his body.

Artemis must have finished him off apparently, because I could see I silver arrow protruding from what used to be Porphyrion's head.

Then as one, we turned back to face one another.

I had a smirk on my face, while her face had twisted into what her eyes had shown all along. "Now, you die." she growled. And the fight was back on.

I had been able to use the break to rest, but the attacks she threw my way made me almost sprint backwards to avoid being sliced to pieces.

So great was my focus on her, that the only thing I noticed other than the fight was when she imprisoned all the gods and campers that got close to prevent them from helping me.

I could feel them staring at me with fear. They knew I was tired, and Gaea seemed to keep getting stronger.

She finally managed to get an excellent blow to Riptide in. I would have praised her on it if she wasn't my mortal enemy, and it spun out of my hand and off to who knows where.

She held it to my throat and smirked. I had to prevent my self from smirking back. She had hit Riptide so hard that it was already in my pocket again, but I kept my face and mind blank to prevent her from knowing this.

"So," she sneered at me,"You put up a valiant effort son of Poseidon. Much more than these pathetic gods would have, but you have lost all the before me, and I promise your death with be a quick one. Resist, and I will keep you alive for all time in Tartarus, tortured for all of eternity. What say you?"

I looked over to where my friends, my family, were rooted into place by roots of earth. All had defeated looks on their faces.

Those closest to me, Annabeth, my father, the rest of the seven, and even Artemis where nodding their heads at me, urging me to take the deal, to escape the pain.

But how could I take the easy way out?

They might think it is over, but the battle is never over until your foe is lain before you, or until you are dead.

"I say," I begin, gathering all of my strength for one last attempt at salvaging the situation.

Then I leapt towards her, Riptide already out of my pocket and in blade form again.

I heard gasp from my captured allies, along with some no's being screamed by my loved ones and, surprising me yet again, Artemis.

Gaea raised her blade with a satisfied smile on her lips, she had known all along what my answer would be. But I found I didn't care.

This was my world, and she wasn't going to take it away from me.

I was originally going to focus my power on the ground underneath Gaea and hope it would distract her, slim a chance as that was.

But a different idea came to me as I reached the peak of my leap. What if I focused my power on her directly?

Knowing I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain, I released all the power I had gathered during her speech directly all her, willing it to cause the greatest earthquake it could, directly in the goddess of the earth's body.

The results were instantaneous, Gaea's eyes widened, and her sword fell from her hand when she tried to place it against her chest.

She never got the chance, my blade piecing right where her heart should be. She stared at me, and I heard the prison's of my allies crumble to dust, and with one final wail, Gaea herself melted back into the ground.


	3. Chapter 3

Narrator

The battle was won, the Giants had all fallen before the combined might of the gods and their champions.

Gaea's wrath however, had allowed her enough strength for one final bit of vengeance before she fell back into her endless sleep.

Commanding the earth that was her domain alone, a hole opened, so deep and dark that it could lead nowhere but Tartarus.

The earth mother, with all her cunning, knew exactly where to open this pit, though she hated to young demigod more than anyone before, it was not beneath him the pit to Tartarus was opened, but beneath his love, Annabeth.

As you might have figured, the demigod in question is, or was depending on your perspective, Perseus Jackson, Hero of Olympus, whose legend has only grown more during the giant war. So great had it grown, in fact, that there was talk of him being greater than Hercules, the hero of heroes.

Though those who spoke of it had no idea that those closest to Perseus had long considered him to be greater that Hercules, and that their opinions where all that mattered to young Perseus.

Returning to our young hero, when Gaea opened to pit beneath the love of his life, there was no question in his mind what he was to do, he ran harder than he had ever run before, so fast that the others around him appeared to be frozen in time, to grab hold of Annabeth before she could fall.

As he grabbed hold of her, all could feel the power radiating from the pit, and all could see as Perseus lost momentum, and coming up far to short of an edge.

And the last that any saw of him was a look of total peace, as water was ripped from wherever it resided to answer the call of the son of Poseidon.

What was left of the trees crumbled to dust as to water left their trunk, grass wilted and died, while the ground became dry and cracked as the water residing in them left suddenly.

All the water rushed toward the rapidly closing pit, and just before it closed completely they saw Annabeth shoot out, with the water acting like a powerful hose, pushing her up with the amount of force Percy had given it.

All that were present looked at the now solid ground, which gave no indication it had even been anything more, and all felt shock.

Annabeth

After the battle and loss of my boyfriend, everyone was silent, everyone was staring at where Percy had been lost.

It did not seem that anything would, or could happen.

No one had imagined the Percy would be among those lost in war, it seemed impossible after all that had happened to him, yet here we all were, still staring at where our champion, our friend, and my love had been lost.

After what seemed like days, but had most likely had been minutes, past, Lord Zeus cleared his throat, and with sadness in his eyes gestured, and with the gesture came the sound of thunder, and extreme dizziness.

When I could see straight, I realized that we were back in the Olympian's throne room. Its beauty, while normally captivating and granting a sense of pride in myself and my skill as an architect, seemed dull and meaningless without Percy by my side.

It was then that my brain, usually always working overtime, finally caught up with what happened, and I broke down sobbing, realizing that I may never see Percy again.

Suddenly my friends were by my side, ready to comfort me.

"Shh," came from Hazel as she hugged me, "Percy will be back, it's not like he hasn't been to Tartarus before."

This was true, but I had already thought of the worst case scenario.

"The last time he was with me though, and most of the monster where either out in the world, or anxiously waiting to be let out," I sobbed on Piper's shoulder who had also embraced me, "Now everything we just killed is in Tartarus with him, and they are stronger than ever while they are trapped in there."

Jason spoke from the side, "That's true Annabeth, but don't forget that Percy has become even stronger than ever since he escaped the pit with you the first time. He is not so easily overwhelmed, and he already knows how to fight most of the creatures down there."

I calmed slightly at that, but the question that everyone dreaded still had to be asked, "How will he get out though? With the doors of death being long since closed, there is only one way out or in, the mouth of the pit. It is simplicity itself to get into Tartarus, but even the monsters who have been escaping for over two-thousand years have trouble getting out through Tartarus that way!"

"I know not my daughter," came from Athena as she sat on her throne, "But we must have faith that young Perseus will find a way."

"I agree with my niece," Poseidon said surprisingly, though his eyes were filled with sadness, "there is nothing we can do for Percy now, but I have little doubt that he will return. For now, we must be thankful that Olympus is safe, and that all of you are here with us. Brother, would you be so kind as to let us know if there is any word of Perseus? Good or Bad?"

Everyone was slightly shock that Poseidon had asked a favor from Hades. "Of course Poseidon, though we did not start out on the best of terms, Perseus has more than proved himself in my eyes," Hades replied.

Zeus cleared his throat once again, "He has proven himself to all brother, and I know I speak for all when I pray for his safe return, but Gaea's children has fallen before us again, and she has fallen into her ,hopefully, eternal slumber once more, but now we must celebrate our victory, and reward these heroes that stand before us."

All the gods nodded at that, even Poseidon. I had stopped crying, though Hazel and Piper where still hugging me while the other three looked at me with sympathy on their faces.

I gently pried both girls off of me and was astonished and touched to see tears had stained their faces as well, had Percy really been that close of friends to them after so little time?

I thought back on when I had first met Percy, and I knew it to be true.

I was shaken out of my thoughts by the lord of the sky beginning to speak again. "First, the six remaining heroes of the Prophecy, as well as Reyna, praetor of Camp Jupiter" he boomed.

All of us, Jason, Piper, Leo, Hazel, Frank, and myself steeped forward. "You have all proven yourself time and time again," rumbled Zeus, "and while you are missing the strongest of you," he glared at us all, "which if he does return, you will not repeat what I just said to him."

Many chuckles were heard and as I looked around the Throne room, I could see many people smiling, including Poseidon.

"You have all proven yourself in your own ways."

"Not to mention they helped you overcome your stubborn refusal to help dear," chimed in Hera.

Zeus rolled his eyes and sighed while the rest of the gods chuckled, "Yes,yes, I was foolish in my decisions, now may I continue with the rewards?" he asked grumpily.

After another round of chuckling, the rest of the Olympians gestured for the King of the Gods to continue.

"As I was saying, you have all proven yourself to Olympus, so our first gift is to all of you. Do you wish to become immortal, bound to service of Camp Jupiter and Half-Blood for all time?"

I looked amongst my fellow demigods as they did the same.

After all our Adventures together, we could clearly tell what the other was thinking with just a look. All here would be happy with that happening, even myself.

My original thought was to reject the offer, but then came the heart-wrenching realization that it may be a very long time before Percy gets out of Tartarus, and this way, I would look exactly the same as when I lost him, instead of an aging maiden, or a dead one.

We all looked at Zeus and spoke in unison, "We accept Lord Zeus."

Zeus waved his hand, and a plate of ambrosia and a chalice of nectar hovered before each of us. "Partake with the food and drink of the gods," he intoned. We all ate a piece of ambrosia, and drank deeply from the chalice.

After we had all drank, every god raised their left hand and held it with their palm facing us.

"Do you swear to protect, to train, and to prepare the demigods of Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood for all Eternity?" Zeus continued.

"We swear," we said in unison once again.

The hands of the gods began to glow brightly, and the light emitting from them seems to bends all around us, bathing us in its glorious light.

When the light died, I felt better than I ever had before, like I could climb the tallest mountain with my bare hands, and by looking around at my fellow demigods, I could tell they felt the same.

I looked closer, and realized that they all looked slightly different as well.

Their faces were the same, but they seemed to glow from within, and the light enhanced their features, giving them an aura of beauty, and I instinctively knew that the same thing had happened to me.

I smiled, the first smile in the short time since Percy became lost and thought to myself, "Percy is going to be in for a shock when he returns."

Nico

I stared proudly at my fellow demigods, for they have certainly earned the immortality they bore proudly now. I knew that they would guide the camps through the expected tough times in the future.

As I began to mull over the future of the camps my thoughts where interrupted as Lord Zeus began to speak once again, "Now that the gift of immortality has been received, it is time for you to receive your individual rewards."

My eyes, as well as many others in the room, including the new immortal campers bugged out.

Surprisingly though the other gods where nodding in agreement, not just some but all of them, it seems that we were able to witness one of the rare occurrences of unity among the gods.

"Jason Grace!" boomed Zeus, as it was natural for his son to be addressed first, though as Jason approached his form flickered and Jupiter now sat upon the throne.

"You have shown courage and compassion on your long journey, you have also shown an incredible amount of wisdom trusting the Greek demigods. You are a true praetor of Rome, and for that, you must be rewarded."

A flash of light and before Jason hovered a blade crackling with lightning, it was transparent, and miniature clouds seems to hug the blade.

"Take this sword my son, as my thanks to you, and as a replacement for your imperial gold blade lost some time ago. The blades name is Storm Striker, and it shall never break unlike your old blade. It will also act as a power conduit, you will find than many of your powers are enhanced while you wield the blade. It will also act as a beacon, making it easier than ever to summon your storm spirit Tempest to your side."

Jason had a proud look in his eye, and a stupid grin on his face as he bowed to Jupiter.

As he walked back to the rest of the demigods, Jupiter flickered, and once again Zeus sat before us.

"Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena," called the goddess of wisdom.

As Annabeth knelt before her mother, Athena began to speak again.

"For cunning, wisdom, and unswerving loyalty towards me my daughter, I first thank you, for though my Roman form treated you badly, you did not stop on your quest to bring me justice. The statue of myself stands resplendent upon Olympus itself, and you have have ended the vendetta of Minerva, and stand as my greatest child to date. For your service I present to you the new and improved version of Daedalus's laptop. I have taken the liberty of finishing several projects my son never was able to complete, and I have added many more new unfinished projects for you to figure out. And because you are my daughter and wish to spare you as much pain as possible, I have also empowered you invisibility cap. While you wear it, it will be as if you have no substance, you may pass through what you wish, as well as it being harder than ever to sense you."

Annabeth stood up after her mother was done speaking, and I could see that she was slightly stunned.

I grinned slightly and figured that we would be seeing very little of Annabeth for the next few months, she may even be able to keep busy enough to keep the loss of Percy out of her mind.

And though I was glad that Annabeth would be happy, I got a sharp pang in my chest at the thought of Percy being forgotten.

"He will never be forgotten," I growled to myself, as I forced myself to pay attention to the next immortal camper being called up.

"Piper McLean, daughter of Aphrodite," squealed Aphrodite.

Piper walked up to the gods looking slightly apprehensive at how excited her mother was, said mother started speaking.

"For bravery and amazing looks," she said batting her eyelashes while all of the other gods rolled their eyes, though I did see Jason nodding vigorously at that statement.

"Your blade Katoptris, may now also be used to see the world around you, no matter the distance, nor time of day. Your second gift, is a more complete control of your charm-speak. You will find it easier than ever to charm others to doing your will."

Piper bowed to her mother and ,as she walked back to her original spot, gave Leo an evil smile.

Leo actually shuddered until his name was called. "Leo Valdez, son of the Hephaestus," boomed Hephaestus.

Leo slowly walked until he was in front of Hephaestus's throne, those not knowing him well enough thinking that he was afraid.

The ones who did knew better. Leo's eyes we darting everywhere trying to gather all information at once, while his brain decoded it.

"For your ingenuity and hard work, we have decided to not only allow you to remain in possession of the Argo II, but to have it fully upgraded to the highest standards. After we, you know, fix it up from the damage it took. In addition, I have taken the liberty of building a much more durable control disc for a certain fire breathing friend of your."

Leo's eyes bulged out at the last part. "Fe..fe..Festus is able to come back?" he stuttered.

"Yes my son, he will be waiting for you when you return to camp half-blood," Hephaestus said looking highly amused.

Leo practically skipped over to the other immortal camper much to the amusement of the throne room.

"Hazel, daughter of Hades," came from the sinister looking man sitting on a simple guest throne by the hearth.

When Hazel stood before Hades he began to shift, and in less than a second Pluto stood before her.

"My child," he said, still sitting on the guest throne, "You have proven yourself a true hero and for that, you have already been been granted immortality. But at long last, I am pleased to tell you that the curse you have born for so long has finally been lifted. You may still summon all the riches of the earth to you, but they will no longer be cursed. As a reward for slaying the giant of death, I also present you with this golden chariot, for I know that Arion will be carrying more than just you in the coming months."

Hazel thanked her father and walked back to her friends as Pluto shifted, and once more turned into Hades.

"Frank Zang, son of Mars," came from Mars himself, Ares having shifted when no one else is looking.

"Now that you are immortal my son, you no longer have to worry about your life stick, check your pocket."

Frank did just that and pulled out what was left of his stick. Everyone saw it no longer seemed to breathe with a life of its own, it was now simply a stick.

"As you do not truly need a weapon with your family power, I have instead decided that you will share a title with me. You shall now be known as Frank Ultor. Bear the name with pride and honor."

Thunder boomed, and Mar sat and shifted once again as Frank walked back to Hazel's side with a look of shock and pride on his face.

* * *

"You may sit immortal campers." commanded Zeus.

After they did he spoke again, "Nico di Angelo, son of Hades step forward."

I did feeling slightly nervous, as I had not expected to be called on.

"Son of Hades, though you were foolish to have searched for the doors of death on your own. Your stubbornness did lead you to find it, and you were able to pass that information on to the seven. For you services to Olympus, we have decided to grant you immortality as well. Should you accept, you will serve as your father's lieutenant for all time." I gaped, for I had really not expected this.

"Do you accept young demigod?" Asked the king of the sky with amusement clear on his face as he looked at my expression.

I swallowed a bit and replied, "Of course my lord."

"Very well," said the ruler of the gods, and after the ritual was completed again I stood completely free of death's touch.

I walked back to my original spot, noticing all the smiles and thumbs up I received. I was fairly certain I was grinning like an idiot.

"Now for the sad part of our ceremony," at this the room grew a little colder, and the flames in the hearth dropped dangerously low.

"We would normally end with offering Perseus godhood again." Many confused and awestruck faces came from the Roman demigods and younger Greek demigods.

I saw many of the senior Greeks whisper into these demigods ears. Not doubt promising to tell them about it later.

"But as I have little doubt that he would refuse it again, even with his girlfriend being immortal." More chuckles were heard, though Annabeth looked sad again.

"We will skip to directly to what Perseus would have wanted instead." A flash of light and Zeus held a paper in his hand.

"Perseus was wise enough to write down his wishes before the final battle, as he had a terrible feeling going into it," I heard Annabeth whisper.

"The first part of Perseus's will: Grant Hades a throne on Olympus," groaned the King, while said brother looked very smug.

"Very well brother, we will honor my nephew's wishes. Take your place among us," said Zeus, as a throne of pure darkness rose from the marble, on the male side of the throne room.

"However, we are now out of balance," grumbled the sky god looking annoyed.

Until he looked down at the paper again, then he raised an eyebrow.

"Fortunately Perseus seems to have known this already, congratulations on returning to our council again sister," Zeus addressed Hestia, as her throne rose from the marble floor as well, on the female side of the room.

After both gods took their respective seats, Zeus spoke again, "Well, now that all of that is over and done with, let the festivities commence!"

The muses began playing, tables of food appeared, and the gods shrank down to mortal size.

The party lasted late into the night, and while everyone had fun, they all at least once during the night would find themselves staring out into space.

All of them thinking of those who were lost in the war. Even the gods we not immune to the sadness that seemed to creep up onto them.

More often than not, Perseus was on most of their minds, though few would ever admit it.

The party lasted until the early hours of the morning, when everyone who was left migrated to a bedroom. The intent being on getting some sleep before the sadness of next day's shroud burnings kicked in.


	4. Chapter 4

Artemis

You would think that after all these years, after all that we had lost, that we, the gods, would have grown used to the loss of mere mortals.

But though we would never admit it, we were more human than they realized. We loved, we felt sadness and pain, and we certainly felt loss. Especially when those we lost were more important to us than they realized.

So it was with the burning of these shrouds. Silver tears slid down my cheeks as I wept for the hunters that I had lost in the final battle.

Their burial shrouds laid perfectly straight on a rectangular slab of stone as they burned brightly, symbols sometimes appearing in the smoke representing their godly parents, or patrons.

I was more stoic for the other shroud burnings. The campers I had not known as well, not to mention there were a fair amount of men among the deceased campers.

I would not disrespect their memory, for even I didn't hate a man that much, except Orion. But despite all my qualms about men, even I could not help the feeling of sadness that came from watching Perseus's burial shroud go up in flames.

Though we did not know what was happening with him in Tartarus, no one objected when his shroud appeared. We all knew too well the dangers associated with where he was.

All seemed to be affected in some way by his shroud.

Poseidon broke down weeping as his immortal wife held him and whispered into his ears.

Ares had shifted into Mars and was saluting.

Dionysus raised his chalice of wine up in a toast and actually seemed more sober than usual.

Athena had her arms around her weeping daughter who had broken down only when we had reached Perseus's shroud. Athena's head was bowed in respect, and several owls flew a few feet above her head, hooting in sadness. Athena had just recently made complete peace with Perseus dating her daughter, so it was understandable that she to felt the loss.

Both Aphrodite and Demeter were working their own respective powers with eyes filled with sadness. Flowers bloomed around the shroud and glitter fell gently over it while doves circled it.

Zeus had started a very light drizzle, not enough for anyone to actually get wet, but enough to know that he was saddened.

My usual idiot of a brother had actually toned it down with the flashy outfits, and was playing a sad melody on his lyre the brought many over the edge to tears.

Hephaestus had fireworks shooting into the sky and each one depicted a monster that Perseus had beaten. The Minotaur showing up several times as it seemed to have a vendetta against Perseus.

Hades stood somberly by the top of the shroud chanting the ancient death rites while black flames seemed to pour from him, surrounding Perseus's shroud with them.

Hestia stood opposite of Hades, tending the flames as she always did while she murmured words over the shroud, and tears of fire leaked down her cheeks.

Hera stood next to Zeus, hand in hand with the lord of the sky, a dark shawl covering her face, allowing no one to see the sadness it held.

Hermes was above us all as he floated about ten feet above the ground, his Cadaecus in its normal form with both George and Martha slithering around the pole. All could hear as they whispered, "Poor Percy, Poor Percy."

As Perseus's shroud finally burned out, many of the observers left except for myself, and my Hunters. I approached where the shroud had been, and I placed my hand gently on the stone, already cool to touch.

"I shall miss you Perseus," I said much to the shock of my hunters. "You were the only one to gain Zoe's respect, and mine as well. You have been the only decent man I have every met. I hope that you do return to us someday, for we all need to see your smile once again."

I turned away to see most of my hunters bowing their heads in respect to the one man able to gain their mistress's respect. All except Thalia, who immediately hugged me and broke down sobbing.

I held her tightly as I whispered assurances to her while the rest of her sisters gathered close as well to help comfort her. Eventually she composed herself again, and with another sad smile to the stone table where the shroud was burned, we walked towards my palace.

* * *

Thalia

Twenty years had passed since Percy had fallen into Tartarus.

Few had any hopes of him returning after so long.

The notable ones that did were myself, Poseidon, and the immortal campers.

Annabeth had admirably remained faithful for Percy for eight years. She had thrown herself into her studies and the projects on Daedalus's laptop.

But work could only stem off the pain of the separation for so long. I had noticed that my friend was becoming more and more withdrawn.

I tried to comfort Annabeth, but when that failed, I resorted to setting up an intervention for her.

All of her closest friends were there along with her mother, as well as Percy's. After a long conversation with everyone, she decided that she would try to move on for Percy's sake. A decision that everyone supported, for they knew it was what Percy would have wanted. Not for his beloved "Wise Girl" to wither away to nothing.

A year after the intervention and several dates later, Annabeth had found someone she enjoyed being with almost as most as Percy. And less than six months ago, they had gotten married, with myself and Percy's mother as some of the bridesmaids.

Before all of that drama, Poseidon had managed to make up with Amphitrite only a year after Percy's fall. She had forgiven him for being unfaithful, and had allowed him to sire more children with two restrictions.

The first being that he better not bed as many women as Apollo. She promised that she would treat these new demigods like family if they showed up. Surprisingly Triton had managed to swallow his pride when he heard his mother say this, and promised to do the same.

The second restriction being that he give her another child.

And so before a second year of Percy's disappearance had past, a new goddess of the sea was born.

They named her Saphi, and when she was six months old, she was granted her domains, goddess of the Sea Breeze, Beaches, and Shallow Waters.

Eight years after Percy's disappearance, she still had given no sign if she planned to marry. Nor, for that matter, if she was interested in anyone. Though I could swear that the few times I had seen her, which had always been during a gathering on Olympus, that I had seen her staring at Nico for long periods of time.

Sally and Paul had conceived another child, who was born four years after Percy's fall, and they named her Diane. Though she was mortal, she was introduced to all of her half brother's friends and several godly figures such as Athena, and Hestia.

Many of those close to Percy took it upon themselves to become her eccentric "aunts" and "uncles."

She was sixteen now, and on a higher intellect level than most high school honor students. A feat attributed to Athena herself tutoring the girl. It had started out as a way to repay Percy for all the kindness he had shown her daughter. But there were whispers that Athena was planning on asking her to be her lieutenant though such rumors would have ordinarily drawn the ire of her children. After meeting the young girl,however, they all agreed that she was perfect for the role.

Piper and Jason dated for five more years before Jason finally asked Piper to marry him. She immediately said yes and kissed him, only to be interrupted by Aphrodite who was ecstatic at the idea of a wedding.

That little scene I had later joked was the reason why Jason's face seemed to be slightly red at all times. Of course every time I brought it up, his face grew even redder. They were engaged for a year before they finally tied the knot. The after party taking place on Olympus itself due to Zeus being so happy about his sons marriage. The party was the first time I had ever seen all the gods together at once actually having fun. Even the minor gods were present and partying because of how large of a bash it was.

And last but not least were my sisters, the Hunters. We had great reason to be happy in the years after Percy's fall. Many new recruits came to us from the Roman camp, especially when the camp was being moved to New York to merge with camp Half-Blood. The new camp, Camp Olympus, was the first of its kind.

All the children of the gods finally working together as one. The ideals of both camps merged together, and a new breed of Heroes came into being. Empowered by both Roman and Greek training, these Heroes could easily hold their own against most monsters.

And when they stood united with their other heroes, they became unstoppable. The endless tide of monsters returning to the world seemed to slack off over the years. But they were still plenty to go around for the campers to fights, and for us to hunt.


	5. Chapter 5

Percy

I fell into total darkness, the light of day growing smaller and smaller as the pit closed.

Though I despaired about returning to Tartarus again, I was content in the knowledge that Annabeth did not share my fate.

Though I had no doubt she was angry with me for sacrificing my safety for her, I also knew I would do it again and again in less than a heartbeat for the love of my life.

As I fell though, I realized that there was a possibility that I may never return to her arms.

My last thought before darkness consumed me was me hoping that she would find happiness.

* * *

I awoke slowly and painfully from my unconscious state, the first thing in my mind being amazement.

Not only was I still alive, but the nightmares that I seemed to be bound to did not come to me while I slept.

As I woke up fully and the full impact of where I was hit me, I realized that I was not entirely correct. I hadn't dreamt any nightmare because I was in a nightmare.

I was lying in what looked to be a shallow cave. I remembered the last time I fell to Tartarus that there where hundreds of these caves scattered throughout the endless pit. I also remembered that for whatever reason, the monsters never bothered to check these caves. Probably because there was generally never a reason to. A flaw that Annabeth and myself had exploited to no end the last time we were here.

As I looked outside of the cave, I realized that while Tartarus was always dark, for it is not the endless pit without a reason, it was darker than I remembered it.

"Not good. Really not good," I thought to myself.

For another things I had found out on my last trip, was that the closer to the top of Tartarus one got, the lighter it became. Now, however, it was so dark I would not be able to see a thing outside of my cave if not for what appeared to be random fires a distance away from my cave.

"The monsters that reside here will be far more powerful than I faced before," I thought to myself. "The only thing I want to know is how much more powerful?"

I knew I would have to be careful, for I didn't have Annabeth at my side to cause havoc and tip the scales with her invisibility cap.

I turned back towards the cave, intending to rest and recover some more before I dared brave the deepest parts of Tartarus, but I stopped in shock. I had been so sure that the cave would be empty as that was all I was used to them being. I would have to remember to fix that line of thought if I managed to get out of here.

I stared a glowing blue crystal on the far side of the cave, it was floating at a level equal to my chest height. It didn't seem to be doing anything, good or bad.

I slowly approached the crystal, drawing out Riptide in preparation for anything. For, as I was well aware, this was Tartarus.

Nothing happened, or seemed to happen as I slowly walked right next to the crystal.

After waiting a few seconds I began to study it, hoping for some sort of clue as to what it was.

It looked to be a perfect sphere. I saw no edges nor faucets on it, or any other sign of an imperfection.

As I looked closer, the glow seemed to emit from within it. When my eyes where merely centimeters away from it, I noticed the light was pulsing steadily. So faint was the change in the sphere that one would not have noticed it, unless they were as close as I was to it.

I knew it was a terrible idea, even for me. But my ADHD kicked in right at that moment, and the desire to touch the crystal was overwhelming. My mind screaming no while I watched my treacherous body reach out and place my hand on the orb. Then everything went to Hades I placed my hand on the orb, a bright flash of light went off.

My first thoughts were about my immediate safety, but, surprisingly not from the orb as I had sensed that it would not harm me. I was praying the monsters outside didn't see the flash, and that the dazzle would fade from my eyes so I could actually see if I did wind up fighting.

All those thoughts and preparations immediately fled when I felt another mind touch my conscious.

The mind I felt was vast and incomprehensive, I knew that this being could easily tear my mind to shreds if it wanted to and there was no way I could fight it.

So I did the only thing I could do, I let my mind relax and allowed easier access to my thoughts. My hope being that this foreign mind would recognize my gesture of good will, and generously leave me sane.

I felt amusement, understanding, and, shockingly, pride as I lowered what little defenses my mind had. The vast conscious swept through my mind like a gentle breeze.

I knew it was there, but I could barely feel it as it examined at my thoughts and memories faster than any mortal mind could comprehend.

As quickly as it had started, the mind retreated, lingering on the fringes of my conscious, giving me my privacy back, but still allowing it to communicate as I soon found out.

"You have traveled a long and difficult road demigod," echoed through my mind.

The voice was kind and gentle, but those traits merely covered the steel behind it. As the voice intoned, I could also feel the wisdom and experience behind it. This being, I realized, had a voice that was even more ancient than Kronos, which spoke volumes to me.

"Untrusted by your own family," the voice continued, while images of myself searching for the master bolt swam through my mind.

"Danger at every turn." Images of all the monsters that had ambushed me throughout the years.

"Forced into leadership and to war." The battle of Manhattan, and the battle against the giants appearing before me.

"But overcoming every obstacle that has been thrown at you," I saw myself after defeating Ares, Hyperion, Kronos, and many more.

"You are truly a paragon of your kind young demigod."

I relaxed a bit and allowed myself to smile slightly. If this ancient being was not going to destroy me, at least not yet, and compliment me? I could definitely find it in my heart to flatter it to give myself a great survival chance, "You flatter me great one," was my answer, "but you are most impressive yourself."

I probably wasn't going to be able to win any contests with that complement. But considering I generally annoyed divine beings more than I made them happy, I thought it was a good start.

The voice chuckled in my mind, "You are also wise young one," I couldn't help but smirk at that, wishing Athena were here to hear it.

"To be wary of the unknown, but there is no need for flattery, not when my time is limited by powers beyond even my control."

I gave a mental nod, showing I understood and silently asked him to continue. Mostly so I didn't have to think about powers beyond this powerful beings control. I had no doubt they weren't cute and cuddly.

Then again, for all I knew he could be talking about Ferbies, which were truly evil. I had managed to set some on fire once in a story I really don't want to get into. The moral being that even after the fire had died down, the creepy things could still talk. They still give me nightmares occasionally.

My thoughts were quickly dragged back into the present, "My time has long since past young hero, and I wish to rest. When we are finished talking, I will finally fade. However, I am not quite done influencing the world just yet."

That last part was said with a feeling of amusement accompanying the last part. "First off, I have chosen you to continue my work, and my line. Secondly, I wish you to know this wasn't a spur of the moment decision. I have had many chances to pass on my knowledge and power, but none were worthy until you."

"So more people than we realize have been lost into Tartarus?" I said with an air of sadness, thinking about all those lost in the endless pit.

"No child," was my reply, which brightened my day slightly.

"My power and essence have been stretched over much more than Tartarus. You are in fact the first to bear witness to my influence down here.

"So what does taking over for you entail?" was my sensible question. There had to be a catch for me to be granted that much power.

"When we are finished here, right before I finally fade, I will cause the part of my essence, which you right now touch with your hand, to be absorbed into your body, and all the benefits that come with that."

Now I was even more sure there was a catch, as this seemed to be too easy. But a suspicion was beginning to form in my mind. "My body? Benefits? Shouldn't I at least know who you are before I absorb your...essence?" was my confused reply.

"Yes my child, with my essence flowing through your veins, your power and soon your skills will be increased beyond your imagination." I'll be the first to admit at this point, I was daydreaming about what I could do.

"As for who I am, you already know the answer to that my child." I thought for a second, a voice of soft steel, essence scattered all over the place, the ancientness of the everything and it came to me in a flash.

"You are Ouranos , first true God of the Sky, and husband of Gaia." I knew that I was right, and I also knew what the catch was.

Ouranos had been cut to pieces by Kronos, and Ouranos had confirmed that his essence was scattered of everywhere. I would no doubt have to find all the pieces before I could attain the full power of the sky lord.

"Indeed my boy, and the only being Gaia ever feared. An achievement, that will hopefully be achieved by you."

"Mmm...mmm..me?" I stuttered out. "Why would she ever be afraid of me?"

Don't get me wrong, I had managed to beat Gaea its true. But I doubted very much that she feared me. Mostly becomes I already knew that if I hadn't caught her by surprise, while she had to keep all the Olympians bound no less, she would have eventually ended me. A fact I am confident she is aware of.

"You will see eventually my dear boy. Let me just say that you will be a force for balance in the future, and a powerful one at that. Now, back to the matter at hand. There are two more pieces of my essence in Tartarus, when you have gathered both, you will possess the power to take yourself from this wretched abyss."

At those words, my heart lifted up so high I thought it was in my throat. I was about to become more powerful, and I only needed two more pieces to escape? I might not be stuck here for an eternity like I thought.

"When we are finished here, you will be able to sense where they, and all the rest of my essence scattered through out the world are. Be warned though, you will faced many difficult challenges here in Tartarus. They are for the most part, fortunately or unfortunately, a mere warm-up for what is to come."

I could feel power start trickling into me while Ouranos talked, the amount the essence contained seemed endless. When he stopped talking, I could feel it rush into me like a great wave of the ocean I was so familiar with, and that I missed with every fiber of my being.

Finally it stopped, and my vision began to grow dark, and then Ouranos spoke, for what I realized would be the final time ever.

"Sleep well great-grandson. When you awake, take the time to analyze what has changed. You will see the surface world again someday, and when you do, make sure you give my regards to my ex- wife."

Tears flowed down my face as I fought to stay conscious. Though we had just met, this being was granting me everything he had once been, and asking for nothing in return. A trait that was definitely not shared by his descendents.

"Do not mourn for me my boy, my time has long since past. Look towards the future and knows this, I am so proud of you."

His connection with my mind faded faster and faster until suddenly, he was no longer there. With that final act I fell into darkness again.


	6. Chapter 6

Percy

When I awoke, I was still in the cave. But I felt very different. In fact I felt extremely good.

Which is surprising seeing as where I was stuck. It wasn't an emotional feeling, however, it was a physical and mental one. I felt like I could hold the sky for all eternity, or that I could fight Gaia in hand to hand combat without breaking a sweat.

I looked down and I gasped slightly, for though I could see little without a mirror and my shirt was still on, my body was obviously covered in more muscles than before. My skin had turned a few shades darker, almost a bronze color, and then I realized how well I could see.

Originally I was confused. I thought maybe I had been moved up closer to the top of Tartarus. As I looked outside though, I was slightly disappointed to see I was exactly where I had left. Then I realized that I could easily see to the edge of the pit, and slowly it dawned on me that my eyesight had been increased to amazing proportions.

The darkness no longer hindered me, which meant Tartarus just became much easier to that knowledge, I became very curious to know what else had happened to me.

With that thought, I could feel an amazing amount of knowledge contained in my mind now. At my unspoken question, I could feel my mind access that knowledge and the answer to my questions quickly became apparent.

In less than a second, I instantly understood what had happened and how powerful I was now. For I contained a piece of Ouranus within me now, with all the knowledge Ouranus the first father had, and part of the power he wielded.

Several more tidbits of knowledge came into my mind unbidden and I became even more aware of what I was capable of now. With that in mind, my hand started moving to my pocket to take out Riptide out of old habits. I forced myself to stop, and with a mere thought and a flash of light, I now wielded Riptide without having to move a muscle.

"This," I thought to myself, "Is worth testing out."

I left the cave with Riptide still in my hand, and I made my way over to the first camp of monsters I could find. I was almost upon them when they finally took notice of me, at which point I stopped, waiting for the inevitable confrontation to come.

"Well, well, well," said the largest of the monsters, a cyclops who was looked like he bench-pressed semi-trucks for fun.

"If it isn't little Perseus Jackson. I didn't know you fell down here to our home away from home. But I assure you, we'll take good care of you, especially after what you did to our patron."

I said nothing as I merely looked at him, still waiting for them to make their move.

The cyclops shifted nervously at my silence before boasting, trying to intimidate me, "You cannot hope to possible beat us here, for this is where we are most powerful. Here, we are strong, here, we can never die."

I finally spoke up at this, "Even gods can die creature, and you are no where near as strong as them."

With that said, I started my attack, and my journey to be free from the pit.

You might be thinking at this time, "Are you insane?"

I had just jumped into a group of about thirty monsters who were at their most powerful without a care in the world.

If you had asked me before the encounter with Ouranus, I would have said most definitely.

But now, all I felt was supreme confidence. Riptide became a force of destruction once more as I leapt right into the heart of the monster camp. I dealt killing blows again and again, as I skillfully parried, dodged, and blocked all attack made against me.

In less than what I assumed to be five minutes, I finished off the cyclops, who had cowered behind his allies as I decimated them, by stabbing him in the gut, and as he bent over in pain, I removed his head from the rest of his body.

I surveyed what I had manage to accomplish with a small smile. The smile didn't disappear when the dust the monsters dissolved into reformed faster than when the doors of death had been opened and the entire camp of now extremely angry monsters glared at me once more.

"I told you demigod, he we are the strongest. Here we are immortal." Boomed the cyclops again.

"Yet despite that you let all your fellow monsters do all the hard work, while you cower behind them. Pathetic," I sneered to him, while the rest of the monsters turned to glare at the cyclops.

"But no matter," I continued, "that was just a warm up for me."

With that said, I let my new found power flow into Riptide, and interact with the immortal power of Zoe Nightshade that had formed it. Riptide began to glow beyond it usual dimness of celestial bronze. Green and blue strands of pure energy began to ripple across the blade, sometimes giving the appearance of lightning, other times the appearance of liquid.

Riptide grew even brighter as the very air seemed to bend towards the blade, and the smell of ozone permuted the air, while at the same time drops of energy fell from the blade to the ground, sizzling when they hit the floor before fading.

"Interesting, I never expected that to happen," I thought to myself.

I then did the last thing the monsters expected me to do. I pulled my arm back, and flung Riptide at the monsters at the edges of the camp.

The blade normally would have just hit the first monster and either stopped dead right there, or continue on out of range if it had just glanced the monster, but it was far from normal now.

My blade already spun like it had never done before, at a good twenty rotations per second.

And the best part? I could control the direction the blade went, as well as how fast it spun, and how fast it moved.

"It almost isn't even fair," I thought to myself, as Riptide cut down all the monsters around the edges of the camp and returned to my hands in less than five seconds. To the monsters eyes, it had almost looked like I had created an arc of energy that had slain their comrades instead.

The monsters weren't surprised by this. They couldn't be, they were to busy staring at where their comrades had been, absolutely astonished that they had been defeated so easily, and even more stunned at the fact that they weren't reforming.

"A little known fact about Tartarus ladies," I said flippantly, and all eyes immediately turned to me.

"You may be harder to kill here, but if you are, you are banished to nothingness for about one-hundred years. Tough luck for you right?"

As I finished talking, I once again charged at the camp, but this time the monsters retaliated in fear instead of arrogance, and many tried to fun from the fight. But I had no intention of letting the news that I was in Tartarus get around if I could help it.

So after I finished off those brave, or foolish, enough to fight me, I struck down the cowards who fled, one at a time.

Unsurprisingly, the one who had gotten the farthest away, was my old buddy the cyclops.

He turned to faced me as I got close, begging me to spare him, promising he would be good, asking me to let him go back to his wife and kids. He said no more, for he had stuck the moment I got close enough to him.

He had tried to grab me, no doubt to crush me to death. I had anticipated this, and moved quicker than his one eye could follow. I dodged his massive hands and slashed from his waist to his opposing shoulder. He crumpled to dust behind me.

I caused Riptide to vanish as I turned around and started walking towards the monster camp again. I would probably need all the supplies they had there to make it through Tartarus.

"It's a good thing that the previous owners have no more need of them," were my thoughts as I approached.

I found quite a bit of food, for the camp was suppose to support thirty monsters. I was delighted to find an empty bag, which after a moment's concentration, was enchanted to be able to hold an endless supply of whatever I could fit in it. I also tweaked the magic a bit to be able to reach in and pull out whatever I wanted, or something as close to what I wanted, without having to dig deeply through it.

I filled up my new pack with all the food the monsters had left, with the exception of the half eaten meals already out. I burned those to prevent and scavengers and any other monsters from deciding to follow my tracks.

I also found some long and very strong rope, as well as a few bronze, not celestial, chests whose heights came to about halfway between the ground and my knees.

I opened the chests and found they were overflowing with gold drachmas. They were heavy, but it mattered little to me with my new strength, as well as the fact that nothing had weight while it was in my new pack. Slinging it over my shoulder, I started off in the direction my new empowered senses told me to go.

I could not tell you what was North, South, East, or West. Fortunately I could tell where I needed to go.

I walked, for what felt like three months, as telling time was quite difficult without the sun or moon, while taking the minimum amount of breaks I could.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that my stash of food would last longer than I thought it would. For with Ouranus's powers flowing through me, my mortal body required less rest and nourishment than usual, as well as being able to take more punishment. A fact that I exploited to no end during my long trek.

I had walked across the vast expanse that was the endless pit several times, for in what seemed to a recurring theme, there was no way up to the next level of the pit without having to walk across its vast expanse. I suppose it was put in there so everything must fight their way to the top without any shortcuts.

Needless to say, because I had to walk across multiple levels of Tartarus, I ran into no end of monsters. I had quickly found while I had the advantage of being able to banish them from a long time, they had also somehow found out about me.

I was not being hunted, which seemed strange to me. Unfortunately, they no longer made stupid mistakes that lead to easy victories.

I fought more in the past three months than I had ever done before. In those three months I also found out how eerily beautiful the different levels of Tartarus were.

When you think of the endless pit, the first thing to come to mind is endless darkness.

With my eyesight though, I could see what the darkness held. The very first level I had been on, the one I awakened on was similar to a meadow. Without the monsters it simply looked like a peaceful stretch of medium length grass under a moonless sky.

As I continued upwards, it became more and more lovely. I never did reach the level that Annabeth and myself had fallen upon, but that will come up later.

I saw forests of stone and rocks that glittered with unnatural light. The first light I had seen aside from my occasional campfires came from a level that seemed to be the inside of a volcano.

While it was miserably hot, I could not help but stare in awe at the power of nature. The fire that danced above the lava, the rocks that glowed cherry red.

I suppose I should be glad that I was able to get a good night sleep every night despite the changing scenery. Truthfully thought, it was irritating to have to fight anywhere between three to four groups of monsters a day, at minimum, to get anywhere in this place.

It didn't help when they were in their own element, such as the volcano. After fighting some elementals, I didn't think my body would ever be able to absorb water again.

I silently cursed myself for sending so many of these monsters here in the first place, though there was nothing I could do about it now except prevent them from returning to the surface for a while.

There were some bright sides to fighting in Tartarus though. The foremost being that with all these powerful beings to fight, my skills in battle, while already pretty darn good if I do say so myself, grew exponentially while I remained down here.

Even the changing scenery helped by allowoing me to learn how to fight in all environments.

In a moment of recklessness, I decided to test my skills against a group of Dracanae, several cyclops, and a few hellhounds in a non-stone forest environment. They had all come at me at once, swinging huge clubs, sharp swords, sharper teeth, and tridents. Not to mention trying to hinder my movements with throwing nets.

I had simply held my ground, and closed my eyes as they came at me. Using all my other senses, I blocked every blow that came towards me, slashed through every net they threw at me, and deflected the arrows they shot at me as well.

Not once did I move from my spot, and not once did I open my eyes until they stopped attacking me. It was only then that my eyes opened and they stepped back in fear, but it was to late for them.

I cut down every single one of them without a decent challenge, jumping from monster to monster and using the trees to gain a height advantage over the cyclops.

When I finished I had picked up my supplies and was about to move on with my journey, then I decided to teach myself how to hunt.

I had spent several extra days on that level, luring away monsters into traps I had made with the rope I had claimed before finishing them off. I had quickly learned all I needed to know about hunting in those days. An achievement that would leave the Hunters fuming if they ever found out.

Returning to the present time, I was on a level that resembled a savanna. I had once again had come face to face with a monster.

Which surprised me, not because of the monster itself for I was on its home territory, but because it was all alone.

"Then again," I thought to myself, "It's not like this one needs any help. "

For I stood facing an old foe of mine, the Nemean Lion.

It snarled at me once, then leapt to attack.


	7. Chapter 7

Percy

I shouldn't really be surprised with how fast this particular monster attacked me.

The others were afraid if I got to close with my blade, but the Nemean Lion had no such worries.

It's hide was as strong as ever as I found out shortly, and it was still very angry at me.

As it came down on me I sidestepped with my blade appearing in my hand and crackling with the power I wielded. I swung at its neck, hoping that the power on the blade could pierce the fur. But this is me we are talking about, and that would have been to easy.

My blade bounced of the lion as easily as it did all those years ago, and I quickly went to the age old secret method of fighting monsters. Get as far away as you can, and come up with a plan to come out ahead. I leapt backwards as its claws occupied the space I had just been.

I remembered that the last time this thing had died, it had been because its mouth was not invulnerable. So I had to come up with a way for it to open its mouth in the first place, and somehow get it to open while I was in a position to stab it.

"Wonderful," I thought sarcastically.

But then it occurred to me that the last time it had opened its mouth, it was because I had no weapons on me, and then I realized what I had to do.

I threw Riptide at its head, and it merely lowered it while my sword bounced off. With what I swore was a grin, it leapt at me again, with its claws outstretched. I simply took a step back out of its range.

It landed with a growl and began swiping at me as fast as it could, not trusting what I was doing for a second. So it refused to open it mouth in an attempt to take a bite out of me. It mattered very little, for it could not touch me no matter what it did.

I dodged every time it made a move, sometimes coming up with very interesting positions to fully avoid the blow. But while its seemed like I was simply playing defense, my plan had finally taken effect.

The lion was so furious that it couldn't even touch me that it finally opened its maw to roar in frustration.

Moving so quickly that only immortal eyes would be able to keep up, I willed Riptide into my hand again. With a snarl of my own, I thrust my faithful blade into the roof of the lion's mouth, causing it is disintegrate on the spot.

I plopped myself down on the ground, taking the time to rest. If I considered the Nemean Lion its own group of monsters, I had fought ten group today so far. My record of twenty-one groups still stood, but they had not been nearly as challenging as the ones today.

After a few minutes in quiet contemplation and catching my breath, I finally turned my attention back to the present. With the Nemean Lion's death, I found myself once again in possession of my old prize, the invulnerable fur pelt.

I put it around my shoulders to start. The pelt had already taken its old form as a full-length golden brown coat. Then I noticed that the clothes I had been wearing for the past three months, were almost ready to fall apart on me. I had been washing them whenever I could, but regular mortal clothes simply could not last that long.

Then I got another idea, I called upon my now not so new powers and focused them onto my lion's pelt. The pelt seemed turn to liquid, and spread from where it partially covered my body to entirely cover it, absorbing and settling over my old cloths. I was now wearing a golden shirt over my torso that was not to loose, but wasn't skin tight either. It was short sleeved, but I instinctively knew that when I wanted it to I could have it cover my entire forearms.

I looked down even farther and saw that I now wore jeans that were amazingly comfortable. I figured that they would also be able to turn into shorts when I wanted them to. I moved around a bit in my clothes after willing the sleeves to extend and was astonished by my freedom of movement.

"Pretty cool," I said out loud.

Comfortable clothing that gave me more protection that the strongest armor was a pretty strong advantage here in Tartarus, especially with the range of movement it granted me.

I longed greatly though for the ability to turn them a different color.

After a few more minutes of admiration, I turned back to the real reason why I had wound up so close to the lion.

The next piece of essence was close, and I had a feeling I could use every advantage I could get.

As I approached where my senses told me the next piece of essence waited, I took a moment to appreciate the dark beauty of the structure I was approaching.

It was tall, almost tall enough to be able the reach the next level in Tartarus.

A temple as old as the pit itself, made with stone as smooth as marble, but as dark as the void.

Even with my enhanced sight, it did not seem like the stone returned any light at all. It simply devoured it.

I walked in what seemed to by a courtyard between two rows of pillars.

All were made of the same stone as the temple walls and carved with different symbols and patterns. Each one was topped with a different monster that I had beaten comprehensively.

I suspected that it wasn't a coincidence as I had noticed that the order that they appeared on the pillars was they same as the order I had killed them.

I was sorely tempted to explore the rest of the temple more and more as I kept walking, but I had to come to a stop.

I finally reached an arch decorated with all the evils in the world and seemed to pulse with energy.

I saw nameless figures being tortured and raped. I saw them being starved and sold as slaves. And I saw them condemned to fates worse than death. I drew my eyes away from the arch and settled them on the huge door that was below it.

This door seemed to be made of a silver metal whose name quickly came to mind. "Imperial Silver," ran through my mind, and I swear I could almost heard Ouranos's voice again.

I quieted my thoughts then accessed everything the old one knew about imperial silver. I saw the lengthy process to create it, the dangers it held, and the power one could coax from it.

It was deadly like imperial gold but not as volatile. It would not explode if it was broken. But it was nigh on impossible to break. It was also more powerful than imperial gold and celestial bronze put together.

A cut made by an imperial silver blade would be three times as dangerous as a cut by the other metals. A minor cut from the other two metals would simply heal. A cut made by imperial silver would either kill or poison the being who was cut. The poison wasn't deadly surprisingly. It merely weakened the one who was poisoned until the poison was drawn out of the being by any other imperial silver equipment.

Returning to the real world, I realized that whatever was behind this door was more dangerous than I originally thought. Unfortunately, I had to go in there if I ever wanted to get out of this place.

I mentally prepared myself, pushed open the imperial silver door, and walked into the innermost sanctuary of the temple.

Riptide was already held lightly at my side so I could spring into action at a moment's notice.

As I entered, I noticed two thing right off the bat. The first was the essence sitting at the center of the altar, on the far side of the room. Like the first one, it glowed with a light that seemed to come from within it. I could not tell if it pulsed like the first one though, as I was to far away, even with my powerful eyesight. The second were all the bones on the floor.

I original thought they were human, but as I looked closer, I saw it was not the case. I saw quite a few vertebrae around the room and at least two skulls. They skulls looked long like a horse but also narrower at the top and bottom. Not to mention the skulls themselves were the size of a horse.

I thought I saw saw places ground down on the skull where horns would be, but I dismissed those thoughts and forced myself too keep moving.

I took a moment to gaze around the room while walking towards the essence. I noticed that the room looked like a place of worship. It might have once been beautiful in a Gothic sort of way, but it was in such disrepair that no one would have noticed if they weren't into architecture. Or in my case, dating someone who was into architecture.

I kept approaching the altar, where the essence still glowed warmly, until I felt my instincts screaming at me to turn around which I did.

My eyes widened, my jaw tightened, and Riptide assumed a ready defensive position.

The arch which had pulsed so ominously as I had approached it outside now had black streams of energy coming out of it. They were collapsing into a dark ball of energy that hovered in the center of the room, though it didn't seem to be doing anything at the moment.

When the arch grew dim, I knew that all of its power had been expended. And I had a feeling that I would know exactly what would happen when the last of the energy touched the ball. I got my answer less than a second later.

All the bones began to shudder and shake. Then they lifted off the ground and began orbiting the sphere of energy. The sphere seemed to have a tendril of power connected to every single bone. As one all the bones began to assume their positions.

In less than ten seconds, a skeletal monster roared at me. It had three heads was the first thing I noticed. I slapped myself mentally when I realized that I had never even seen the third head while it was on the ground.

The second thing was what appeared to be the framework of what must had once been massive wings.

Finally I took in the size of the creature itself.

All of that put together, and I knew exactly what I faced, even without Ouranos 's knowledge.

As if to confirm my thoughts, three pillars of blue fire shot out of the creatures mouth.

"Dragon," I thought, "Why did it have to be a dragon?"


	8. Chapter 8

Artemis

It has been fifty years since the end of the Giant's War. Fifty years since the one uncorrupted man in the world fell into hell itself.

I tried not to think about him originally. I expected him to fade from memory as Orion had for the most part.

As the years had gone on, however, I found myself thinking about him more and more.

Unlike Orion who had been a pig, the absolute lowest of the low, Percy had been one of the most noble people I had ever met.

I remembered the first time that I had seen him face to face. He was going out of his mind trying to find his friend Annabeth.

I knew at that moment that he was special. No one else would have been brave enough to shout at me like he did when I didn't let him go search for her.

What had truly earned him my respect had been the battle right next to where the sky tried to meet the earth. He had been foolish enough to face Atlas head on despite Zoe's warning to him. And despite being outmatched, he had ignored me when I told him to flee.

Ignoring my orders would have ordinarily been met with harsh consequences despite the, awkward situation I was in. He proved himself to me yet again though by not trying to continue his fight with Atlas.

Instead he freed me, holding the entire weight of the sky by himself while I fought Atlas myself. Most heroes I have seem over the years would have been terrified about the mere idea of them holding the sky. They would have fled when I told them to. Or worse, fight Atlas themselves.

Percy was braver and smarter than I gave him credit for though. Despite my pain at Zoe's passing, I could not help but be impressed that he had gained the respect of my best friend.

That was when my respect for the Hero of Olympus had begun. I found out much later that it would soar through the sky due to all that he accomplished before he fell into Tartarus.

Something changed drastically during the final battle against the Giants though.

It had started when Perseus had saved me from being absorbed by Gaea and when he had fought the Earth Mother herself.

I had been happy when I realized it was him who had saved me. When I realized that it was because of that I was happy, I nearly fell out of the sky I had just retreated to.

Then when he fought Gaea I had felt panic. I found myself praying to who knows what for him to be alright while he fought her. Not just because if he lost, we all would have lost at that point. I found myself actually caring about what would happen to him.

When Gaea fell before his blade, I had nearly screamed in relief that it was over, that he was safe. When he fell into the pit, my grief had only been matched by his father and Annabeth.

I originally told myself that my feelings where nothing to worry about. With Percy's loyalty, he would never leave Annabeth's side for anything. I told myself my feelings didn't matter. They would not sway him from his love and they would disappear because of that.

It came as a shock then, to find out that after ten years Annabeth had finally began to move on. I could not berate her though, I also knew it would not hurt Percy to know that his girlfriend had been faithful for ten years in the hope that he would return before she moved on.

It presented a strange problem to me though. Without Annabeth in the picture anymore, there was no one to prevent me from thinking about him. I found myself daydreaming about him whenever I had a good day.

When I realized how often it was happening, I tried to suppress it. I occasionally took a glimpses through hidden Iris messages at bars and other places males went to see the scum who frequented them. It was suppose to remind me of how terrible males were and why I should not be thinking of one.

My plan backfired spectacularly. I began praising Percy in my head whenever I compared him with the swine that made up his gender. My only solitude from my secret shame became the fact that Perseus was still in Tartarus.

We knew he wasn't dead, Hades had told us that much, but he still wasn't among us. My biggest worry became what would happen if Perseus ever managed to return from Tartarus. What would I do?

I was suddenly pulled out of my thoughts by Hermes of all people.

"Could you repeat that Hermes? I wasn't exactly paying attention."

He snorted a bit at that. "Sort of? I've been trying to talk to you for the past two minutes. You kept staring off into space, even when I threatened to hit on one of your Hunters."

I blushed slightly at this before snapping at him. "Unless you want the same treatment I give my idiot brother, don't even thing about it. Now what is so important that it requires you to deliver a message personally."

He began to say something but I raised a hand cutting him off.

"Wait, don't tell me. Another emergency meeting right?"

He nodded and I sighed.

"Well, let us hope it is actually something important this time," I grumbled while we both flashed over to the throne room.

As I grew to my godly height I couldn't help but remember the last time an emergency meeting had been called.

Aphrodite had lost her favorite hairbrush and was screaming at everyone. It had taken over three hours for her to be calmed down, and that was after several more fights had broken out. It turned out she had left it in her other dresser. At that discovery the rest of the council had to hold me back as I tried to end her existence right then and there.

Shaking my head slightly and returning to the present, I saw that the last Olympian to arrive was my father.

After he had taken his seat he glared at everyone, daring them to divert the discussion. Not a sound was made, as everyone had noticed that the King of the Gods looked more serious than usual.

"So," he began.

"We have quite a large...problem that needs to be dealt with."

Everyone grew tense at that. It wasn't the statement that he made that had everyone on edge, he had made it countless times over the years. It was the lack of theatrics that tipped everyone off that this was a very serious matter.

"It seems," he drew the words slowly, "That we have a werewolf problem."

Everyone grew silent at that, as they all knew the danger the Lycan King posed to our children.

"The scum has declared full out war on all of our children." I looked around and noticed that everyone had a confused face that probably matched mine.

Cutting us off before we could speak, Zeus continued his story.

"I know what you are probably thinking. Hasn't he always been at war with us? Well the answer to that is yes. However."

I felt the room grow a little bit chilly at this. We were definitely not going to like what came next I could tell.

"He has managed to find away to enhance his sense of smell it appears. He has already personally attacked and slain over six of our children, the oldest being no more than eight."

Many gasps of surprise and outrage were heard, mine being the loudest.

Our surprise came from the fact he had managed to tell they were demigods at such a young age. Generally they had to be around ten before that happened, or realize that they are demigods. From the tone of my Father's voice, I figured that it wasn't the case.

"That mongrel has been alive for far to long," I thought to myself.

"I will rip the answer of how he increased his senses out of him, then skin him alive for harming those children."

I may be a maiden goddess, but I still loved all the children I meet. Even the male ones weren't to bad at that age, it was only when they grew older that I began to despise them.

"Except for one," crept through my mind.

I mentally slapped myself for that slip, and then again when I saw Aphrodite turn towards me curiously. She had obviously felt something come from me, and I was not about to let the Goddess of Love influence me.

"Father," I spoke loudly, and waited for him to face me fully.

"Allow me to hunt down this forsaken being and bring you his head." I waited as all the gods began nodding at this.

They might not agree on everything. But when it comes to a monster messing with their children, they are not happy.

Even Hera and Hestia were nodding their heads, and they had no demigod children of their own.

"Very well daughter. You have my permission to end him once and for all."

The lord of the sky looked thoughtful as he finished.

"Because of the threat involved with the Lycan King. You will have three months before you show me the progress you have made with him. If I am not satisfied with what I have seen, I will be sending out additional teams to ensure his quick demise. Do you understand?"

Normally I would have thrown what my idiotic brother would call a hissy fit. In this case though I didn't.

The threat was so severe to all demigods that I knew if I had made no progress in stopping it in three months, I would need all the help I could get to stop it.

"Yes father," I replied after a moments consideration.

Most of the other gods looked at me in surprise as I had not argued the point.

"Very well. Then hunt well daughter. Meeting adjourned." With a flash of lightning, the sky god disappeared.

I flashed myself to my palace and began making preparations.

After I finished gathering everything I needed from my palace, which wasn't much, I flashed myself to where my Hunters were camped.

They were all sitting around the camp fire as I approached. The night had come faster than I expected.

They stared to rise to greet me as I approached, but I gestured at them to remain in the seats.

I took my usual spot by the fire as that spot was always reserved for me and I stared into the flames.

After a few minutes had passed I addressed my girls.

"We have been given another mission. One of the utmost importance."

I could sense the girls where excited at this new development and apprehensive at the same time.

I suspected that it had something to do with my facial expression and the way they light from the fire shone on it.

"We are hunting the Lycan King." I stated as calmly as I could. It would not do for me to lose my temper in front of them.

"He is hunting down demigod children. Most no older that eight."

Angry muttering had broken out, but they took a confused tone when I told them how young the victims were.

Anticipating their next question I pressed on quickly.

"We are not sure how he is able to smell them when they are that young. My father has requested that we do our utmost to find out how this has happened. Preferably before we kill him."

I could see the anger in my girls eyes, they are pissed beyond belief that this monster had taken to attacking defenseless children.

"We start hunting at dawn," I said, then walked over to my tent to begin my planning session.

The fifth year has barely passed for our hunt, marking it as the longest it had ever taken to finish off our quarry.

To add to our shame, it was also the bloodiest hunt in the long history that the hunt had existed.

When the end of the first year had come, we were tired and grief-stricken, but we were filled with vengeance.

Our prey had managed to outwit us on every turn. No doubt due to that heightened sense of smell. If it could smell young naive demigods, it would definitely pick up on a whole group of them.

The Lycan King had left a bloody trail for us to follow across America, but it was the only trail we had.

It was heartbreaking to come across the broken bodies of the young. The only thing we had to comfort ourselves with was the thirst for vengeance and knowledge that wherever the little ones died, the monster was not far behind.

It had only added to our grief ridden hearts when several of our sisters fell in battle in different cities.

The lycanthropes had begun leaving several of their warriors behind when they visited somewhere.

The warriors fell quickly of course, but it was not their intention to win or slow us down. Instead they had clearly gone for the most isolated of my Hunters when they were unaware.

They only succeeded a few times, as my Hunters were never truly isolated. It was still heart-wrenching watching one of my maidens, my friends, die in front of me though.

"No matter how often I see it," I thought to myself sadly, "I will never become used to their life leaving their eyes."

The second and third year had not been better.

If anything it became harder to track the lycanthropes as there were many side missions that came up along the way. I tried to refuse as many of them as possible, but I couldn't avoid all of them. Usually the ones I had to take were nearly as great importance as the Lycan King. So I didn't feel to bad pausing our hunt for him on occasion.

The fourth year was the most depressing yet. I had lost nearly half of my hand-maidens to the scum without being any closer to finding him than before.

Right as the fourth year had come to a close I was more than ready to pause in the hunt for our prey.

The only conciliation we had received that year was that no more young demigods were killed. Normally this might have lead me to believe we were close. The truth was though I had no idea I we were closer or if the King had simply tired of the cruel sport.

My original plan was to allow my girls to rest and recoup from our losses. Then we stumbled upon our prey in a way that could have only be described as pure luck.

We were about to set up camp when we noticed that the tracks we were following had been fresh. Very fresh.

Over the next year we had hunted like never before. Our prey was no long able to stay in the dark and we were only a few steps behind him every time. On several occasions we managed to catch glimpses of them as they had fled from us.

Ultimately though, it was our blood thirst that had cause everything to go to Hades. I was no exception to this.

We were eager for our hunt to end and have the Lycan King's head on a pike. So we did not pay attention to were he was leading us until it was too late.

We arrived on the border of Alaska, the land beyond the gods. Normally I would have called off the hunt immediately. Our prey was closer than ever before though, and we though we had the upper hand.

We were wrong.

The hunters became the hunted the moment they entered Alaska, though we did not know that until two days later.

It was on that faithful night that the Lycan King sprang his trap.

Ordinarily such a trap would have meant nothing to us if I was at my full power. Because I wasn't, the hunt was in for the fight of our lives.

The rest of the lycanthropes attacked my girls, while the Lycan King faced me himself.

I do not know the exact details of what happened when my hunters faced down the lycanthropes, I only knew the results.

With my power weakened, the Lycan King was at significant advantage and he knew it. I kept trying to hit him with arrows, but his speed and my lack of ensured that nothing touched him.

He managed to get close enough to knock me over and force me to engage in a melee battle. The fight came to an end quickly after that. I was nowhere near the king's strength while I was in this forsaken land, and I ended up with him pinning me down on my back in his wolf form.

He was about to tear out my throat and would have manage it too. That was until I found one of my silver arrows in the snow not far from where I was trapped.

I grabbed it and managed to thrust it right between his jaws and into his brain, killing him instantly.

After I pushed the carcass off of myself, the body began to finally dissolve. A fact I couldn't even get irritated about due to how worried about my hunters I was.

What I saw filled me with pride and grief. All of the pack was dead, but so were a great deal of my girls.

I wanted to break down and cry right there, so great was my grief. I had managed not to, and instead gathered up all the wounded and the fallen and made camp.

The next day after we had rested I took account of what our losses had been.

We were down to fifteen hunters out of the thirty I had left with me.

I once again forced myself to hold my emotions in check and had my girls make their way to the border with me.

It was only a half mile after the border that we made camp. It was there that I had finally broken down in tears.

We burned the shrouds of my fallen sisters there, as we had all refused to do so in that gods forsaken land.

It had taken over a year of a break from the hunt to get over all those we had lost.

When we began again, it was with more caution than ever before. We now knew all to well the dangers of overconfidence, even with a small army at your back.


	9. Chapter 9

Percy

When you face down a huge fire-breathing, not to mention skeletal, dragon, your options are somewhat limited.

You can run, you can pray for a quick death, or you can fight. My choice became clear when I charged.

I had not even crossed half the distance when all three heads breathed fire in my direction. It covered the ground in front out, as well as the left and right of me in flames.

Apparently, this monster was actually smart enough to come up with a plan.

Fortunately though, I had picked up quite a bit of tactics over the years from spending so much time with Annabeth.

I leapt above the flames which were a good twelve feet high. A feat that was quite easy now that I had practice calling on all the power of Ouranos I could muster after the many months of hands on monster fighting.

I managed to get enough lift and momentum that I was able to lash out and sever the left most neck from its body. The power coursing through my blade assured that no replacement head would be growing back anytime soon.

Unfortunately, I had a feeling that same tactic would not work again.

My suspicions were confirmed when the dragon rose to it full height with all its limbs on the ground , its necks moving away from one another, and its wing raising to their full wingspan.

"Great," I thought.

With it in that position, I might be able to sever another head, but the other would be ready to set me on fire. And if I tried to move quickly, I would not be able to stop in time. I would miss the flames which is a good thing, but I would hit the wings. Which I noticed were sharp, very sharp.

I needed someway to negate the flames of the dragon, a feat that was impossible for me at the moment. I didn't have any water to douse it, nor enough raw power from Ouranos to negate it.

Then I face-palmed.

I didn't have enough power now, but there was still a piece of essence just sitting on the altar that I had completely forgot about in the heat of the moment.

Apparently the dragon was the only defense system it had, and it was still glowing merrily on the altar. The only challenge now was getting to it.

I decided to go with a classic to distract the dragon. I threw Riptide and guided it towards the dragons neck. As I expected, the dragon easily knocked it aside with its wings, though it did slice several bones off of them. The dragon then turned its attention back to me, ready to tear me apart since it knew I didn't have a weapon anymore.

Or it tried to rather, for I was no long in its field of vision. I had run as fast as I could and was already at the altar as the dragon roared and quickly turned to face me, but it was still too slow.

I put my hand on the orb, I already knew thanks to Ouranos that I would not pass out again, and I concentrated as hard as a guy could with an undead, three-headed, fire-breathing dragon in the room.

Sure enough, I felt the power slam into me, which caused me to stumble slightly. I was still awake though, and more powerful than ever. The dragon roared in fury and tried to bathe me in flames once again.

There were now hundreds of things I could have done to not be hit by those flames, but I decided not to go with the easiest.

The easiest involves me turning the fire back upon the dragon, but I went with the one that would give me the most satisfaction.

I moved so fast, it seemed that time was standing still, and seemed to appear on the dragon right in between its two necks. I swung Riptide in a large arc, going from low to high, left to right, and severed both necks so quickly, that they both fell to the ground at the same time.

I proceeded to hop off what was left of the body before it could crash into the ground. The power that animated the body now fled it, and instead of returning to the arch it seemed to flee the very room.

Relaxing and stretching my shoulders, I summoned my pack to me. I had thrown it into a corner when the dragon had began to form and it had managed to avoid taking any damage.

I then made my way to the mouth of each dragon head. Using a knife I had taken from the monster camp all those months ago, I pried out its teeth one at a time.

Soon I had exactly one hundred dragon teeth that could be used. I had already discarded the few broken ones there had been as they would do nothing if planted.

I decided to play with my new power a bit and focused it on the teeth fusing them all together into one. I hadn't created one large tooth, in fact the tooth I held was the average size of a dragon tooth.

Instead I had bound them all together magically so I wouldn't have to carry them all at once. I had also taken the precaution of binding them more heavily than other spartus.

I had noticed with the spartus summoned by Frank's spear it had been slightly wild. I had no intention of letting that happen with these teeth.

I then looked around the room, and noticed several god rods that looked like they were used to hold candles on top of them. I selected the one that was in the best shape and focused my power on it.

The gold rippled and symbols started appearing on it. I cared little for the symbols, my eyes were on the Roman numerals that formed at the top that seemed to keep shifting endlessly. I grabbed the enchanted tooth from the floor and with a flash of light fused it with the top of the rod. The numerals stopped shifting so that one hundred was clearly displayed. I held what was now an imperial gold spear with a dragon tooth tip on it at arm's length and ran a quizzical eye over it.

It shared similarities with the spear Mars gave to Frank on his first quest, but it was slightly longer. With the patterns on the shaft giving it an air of beauty where Frank's spear had been a plain shaft. After some more thought, I altered the spear in one more way. I made it so that the spear could still be used if it was recharging, or if the bearer didn't want to use a charge. The bone tip would simply be replaced with a gold tip, and everyone would be happy.

"Well, except for who ever is getting speared by it," I concluded.

I stuffed it into my bag, for I had no intention of using it for myself. In addition, even with all my knowledge, I had no idea if the summoning would work in Tartarus. I was naturally loath to waste a charge on testing it out.

I put my bag around my shoulder again, and set out, glad to be leaving this dark temple.

"I am never getting out of here," I said glumly.

The final piece of essence seemed to be taunting me ever since I had left the temple. Which had started to collapse on me when I left the dragon's room by the way. I never got a chance to explore its ruins either since it seemed to melt into the ground.

I figured that Ouranos's essence had been bound to it in someway, and with its departure the temple had lost its power.

I didn't even know how long it had been since the temple, I had lost track of the day while I tried to figure out where the last essence was.

You can imagine my surprise when I felt the familiar tug of the essence calling out to me, but instead of continuing upwards like I had done three months before the temple, it was down. Right back the way I had come, like one big practical joke.

Admittedly travel was much faster, as there were few monsters left on those levels, and the few I did meet easily fell before my new power.

I was originally concerned that without a challenge that my skills with my blade would become rusty. It was for that reason that I took the utmost precautions when I finally reached the levels of pit I had never been to before.

My concerns went unfounded, for even going a month without an opponent my skills were as great as ever. It was those encounters that led me to the conclusion that, thanks to Ouranos 's power, I would not have to worry about my skill decreasing. Indeed, with my power increased again thanks to my trip from the temple, my skill cap seemed to be increased again.

I delved deeper and deeper into Tartarus, and the monsters kept getting stronger and stronger, but my combat skills were once again increasing exponentially.

Like my trip upwards, the scenery kept changing as I delved lower and lower. As I expected, the previous levels where lighter, and their scenery was remarkable similar to scenery in the surface world.

As I went deeper and deeper, the semblance to the real world faded. In fact, their resemblance to reality faded as well. I saw a level of rolling sand, with ships fighting naval battles on it. One looked like a flat surface with a sandstorm raging on it until the sands began to form armies of skeleton warriors before they dissolved into what I realized was ground bones.

The monsters kept pushing me in both body and mind, and for the first time I began to appreciate falling into the pit. It was dangerous beyond belief down here and terribly lonely, but it was the greatest training regiment that I could ask for.

I massacred thousands of monsters, each more powerful than the last as I slowly approached my goal at the deepest depths of this infernal pit.

Surprisingly, none of the monsters I killed left behind any more spoils of war. I was curious about it until I remembered the knowledge I contained. After a few seconds of thought, I concluded that the reason nothing was dropping was because nothing they dropped could enhance my combat skill. There was absolutely no reason why I needed to lug around simple trophies, never mind the endless pack.

My luck changed however when I reached the void creatures.

It was in one of the deepest levels of the pit, for I had traveled for a lot longer than three months. While I had slain thousands of my foes if not hundreds of thousands down here, this level gave me the jitters.

This was due to the all consuming vortexes of darkness that seemed to populate this level. No light was on this level but the light from Riptide, and that seemed drawn into the vortexes like a black hole, though I felt no pull towards them myself.

I was very on edge while I was traveling through this level because I was already halfway through it, and I have yet to meet a single monster.

It was a good thing to, for one of the vortexes began to alter itself and form into a vaguely humanoid shape with very large claws that looked like a scythe was fused to each limb. Its body acted exactly like the way the vortex was before, devouring all light that was near it. Its eye were the only exception to the rule, they glowed red brightly and steadily.

It gave the most terrible shriek I have heard in my short life, a cross between Aphrodite's squeal and Grover's music before he became good at it, and it leapt to attack.

I quickly regained my wits, that screech was truly terrible for any being to here, and instead of leaping back or sideways, I stepped forward. The monster was certainly surprised even if it gave no indications of it, because I highly doubt it expected to get stabbed.

My blade sank into what I assumed was its gut and a dark fluid began spraying everywhere, covering my lion skin clothes in it.

I was wiping some of it from my cheek as I watched the things body deflate as the fluid leaked out of it when I stumbled forward. I quickly turned around and deduced that one of the twenty void creatures now behind me had attempted to stab me in my back, not aware of the power of the Nemean Lion pelt clothes I wore.

With a shout, Riptide blazed up again, eager to end the lives of more monsters.

The battle I fought lasted longer than the other fights I had in Tartarus. The creatures dissolved just like every other monster that came into contact with Riptide while it was a focus for my power. But it was hitting the creatures that was tricky.

Often I had struck at a one whose defenses I had overwhelmed, and it simply vanish to a few meters away, usually behind me to catch me by surprise.

I quickly caught on to this strategy and realized it was all the strategy these void creatures had. I quickly turned the strategy against them. I forced them to shift behind me, and stabbed behind me every time they did, hitting one every time because of their stupidity, and wiped them out of existence for a few decades.

When it was over, I looked down at my clothes, and stared incredulously at them. The blood of the void creature had somehow spread to cover all of my clothes, giving them the same effect as the creatures body, a blackness that seemed to absorb all light.

"Well, at least I finally am wearing a color I like," was my thought.

A hint of danger rolled up my spine, and I immediately threw myself backwards as one last void creature came out of nowhere.

This one being smart enough to attack from the front at my face. I had no time to swing my blade, or even curse myself for being stupid. Time seemed to slow down as my thoughts sped up, and I saw one of the claws mere millimeters away from my neck and closing in. I knew that there was no way I could physically prevent that claw from shearing my head from my neck.

I thought what I thought would be my last living thought, "Gods I wish I could shift around like they could."

That's when things got weird, I was now looking at the backside of the void creature. Not planning on wasting my good fortune, for the creature was now off-balance due to no resistance meeting its attack, and sheer surprise.

I swung Riptide, and the creature dissolved. I checked to make sure there were no more around, then I looked down at my clothes again.

"Interesting," I thought.

I can't flash anywhere I wanted yet, that required more power than I had at the moment. Not to mention it takes a decent amount of energy to do so, so I knew it wasn't that.

My suspicions proved true when I now felt myself shift a few meters away.

"So, that blood did more than just give my clothes a make over I see."

I experimented a few more times, and realized that while the range wasn't great on my new ability, it took no energy to perform it. So I could quite literally dance around any battlefield from now on.

"This is going to make life very difficult for monsters," I thought as I set up my camp for the night.


	10. Chapter 10

Percy

More time had gone by, though I still had no idea how much.

Things had gotten even more challenging ever since the void creatures. It was only through a combination of my skill and Ouranos's power that kept me alive.

I still slaughtered thousands of monsters a day, but there were some groups I just avoided. The group of five drakons for example, or the pack of two hundred hellhounds. I had no intention of risking my life on challenging them when I could go around.

There was not a single being down here that I could not beat one on one. Well expect for one, but these groups of them were an entirely different thing.

If I had been in the upper levels I wouldn't have a problem with them. They just became so freaking strong down here.

For example, I was fighting a centaur whose weapon of choice was a sword. Before, it had been simple enough to fend of all of their attacks and even overpower them if bored.

Now though, they could keep up with my speed without any discernible effort. Not to mention when I had tried to overpower one by pushing his sword back with mine, he had simply held his ground,not giving up an inch in the process.

Speaking of the one being I couldn't take on one to one, I quickly hid behind some rocks as he passed.

I was actually making my way down to the next level. So I was ,of course, on one of the trails that spiraled around the edge of the pit. The paths between levels were as various as the scenery of the levels themselves.

I had climbed several dozen ladders, a few ropes, only two escalators, and only one elevator. I griped every time after the elevator that there couldn't be more of them.

Back to my buddy, he was so large that he could reach up and easily touch the level above him. As for how he got all the way down here, I have no idea. The other levels didn't seem to show any signs that this gigantic creature had fallen down here.

I would have expected large holes in the ground or something like that, but nope, not a single clue. Who is the one being that has made me hide behind rock like a scared child? The only one to give the gods so much trouble of course.

Typhon, father of all monsters, the being that almost destroyed the southern part of America single-handedly without even trying.

I knew there was currently only one person who could take Typhon on one on one. And that was a fully awake Gaia.

I knew that according to Ouranos, eventually I would have enough power to defeat him as well. But for now, I was a mere gnat compared to this powerhouse. So I took the trail down slower than usual, always making sure the I was never seen by him or anything else.

The last thing I needed was to get in a fight large enough to draw his attention. When I reached close to the bottom, I relaxed, or as much as I could anyway.

I had finally reached the last stop on my list, the level where the last piece of essence in Tartarus was held.

I took a moment to take a look at this level, as I was curious about the dangers it might hold.

I saw monster camps around the far edges of the zone, strategically placed to avoid being crushed beneath Typhon. The zone itself had no features that stood out to me except the giant footprints.

I figured that either this was the way it had always looked, or everything had simply gotten crushed by the giant.

I did not wish to waste more time than I had to, so I moved towards the essence's resting place with as much stealth as I could basically involved me shifting repeatedly to safe spots where I couldn't be seen or stepped on.

I doubted the monsters could see me, but it never hurts to play it safe in these situations. I especially didn't want the monsters to attack right now, because while I could probably beat them with little problems, I was still unsure about the whole get Typhon's attention accidently thing.

I was fairly sure he would notice if fighting broke out, because he seemed to be making sure not to step on any of the camps not hugging the edge much to my regret.

I finally made it to the one landmark the level had, a huge mountain that dwarfed me, but would occasionally be used as a seat for Typhon. The top of it was worn smooth, so I had no doubt it was often used as a seat repeatedly and could hold his weight.

Therefore, I had no excuse not to enter the entrance of my destination, the cave where I knew the final essence rested.

I looked on with amusement at the fact that this essence resided in a cave similar to the first one, though this cave was much larger. Like when I entered the inner sanctuary of the temple, I mentally prepared myself for whatever was in there.

Right after I finished I strode inside, Riptide at the ready. Once again, I immediately saw this essence, which was also floating at the center of on altar. But I hesitated in running for it, because the was a woman in a black shawl standing next to the altar.

"Ah, my dear young Perseus Jackson has come to visit me again," she said with a hint of amusement and a definite middle eastern accent.

I tensed up, "Medusa," I said calmly. "Or should I call you Auntie M? Long time no see." The sarcasm in my voice clearly giving away that I didn't think it had been long enough.

"Yes dear, I certainly has been awhile. Call me Auntie M if you please. And I believe the last time we saw each other is when you cut off my head." her voice now contained a hint of anger.

"Sorry about that," though I wasn't sorry at all, "But you did try to turn us to stone first if I remember correctly." My tone made it clear that I thought it was a decent response.

"You would have made such a nice statue," she sighed, "But unfortunately it was not to be. Nor will it be the case now."

"Really?" I said surprised but also wary, "What is the case now then?"

You can understand why I was surprised. Last time she had been so keen on me being a statue that she could have to herself.

"Well my dear, I require your blood of course," like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"With the blood of a hero like you, I will be able to raise myself back to the mortal world faster than the blink of an eye. And it is impossible to get blood from a statue of course."

"Of course," I said raising my sword to the ready position.

Medusa raised her hands to her head and made sure her shawl wouldn't come off, then she lowered them to chest level for her. Her palms faced inward and then the tips of her hands turned to incredibly sharp claws.

"Sharp enough to shred celestial bronze if I remember correctly," I thought cheerfully.

She then clenched her claws and with a snarl, she attacked.

Annabeth

I was staring at the blueprints for several buildings that were currently being built-in New Olympus, the city to replace Rome.

It had taken many years for the merger between camps to be fully complete. One of the main problems that came up was where would the new camp, Camp Olympus, be placed, and what to do with the old camps.

We had argued about it for who knows how long before we finally came up with a solution that everyone could agree on. Camp Half-Blood would form the base of Camp Olympus.

Over the years we planned to expand it to include everything Greek and Roman, as well as be large enough to house all the demigods at once. Several ideals of both the camps became merged together to maximize the potential of the demigods.

All of the cabins from Camp Half-Blood would remain, with a few extra ones built later on for the Roman minor gods. The demigods would live in their respective cabins, but they would fight along-side the members of their cohort in the legion.

With the amount of demigods flowing in plus all the ones already there, major changes had been made to how the legion worked.

The biggest and most controversial change came from dissolving all the original cohorts. The idea was to make sure that no one had an advantage over another. We did not want all the Greek campers who had no idea how the legion worked being forced into one cohort and being deemed lesser to the other cohorts.

Many of the older legion members complained of course, but they were always ignored as they were to snobby to be taken seriously.

With the move of all the Roman demigods to Camp Olympus, we began to worry about how we would keep an eye on Atlas's mountain. We decided that the best solution would involve leaving the majority of the Battlements there intact, and sending demigods who needed to "toughen" up there.

The plan worked surprisingly well despite the fact not many had agreed with it. The demigods sent there usually came back two to three years later, and in much better physical and mental shape.

We also found out quickly that it was a good way to punish demigods for various issues, usually only the larger ones. A few years at the old Roman camp, or the borders as some took to calling it, would always straighten out the most hard-core trouble-makers.

I should probably take the time to mention that the Greek mentality wore off on the Romans, not the other way around. The Romans became much more laid back and began enjoying pranking people as much as we did.

The trouble-makers who got sent to the borders we sent because they either refused to follow orders, which is something even Greeks soldiers do, or because the were bullying other campers. Both of those violations got you a one way ticket to monster hell.

The last thing we moved from the Roman camp was New Rome itself. We packed it up as fast as possible and had it across the country where our new city, New Olympus, would be in record time.

When we unpacked the city it was beautiful as always. The problem was that it was too small for all the new people at the moment.

The gods intervened on the discussion on who was to design the new places in the city and named me official architect again. The project was almost as large as redesigning the original Olympus, and I was glad to have the support of my husband William in it. Together we designed, then help build the new city of heroes.

The original structures of New Rome were moved around quite a bit, and the city that took its place more than tripled the size of it.

Many Greek building were added as well as a few new Roman building. The biggest change made was the shrines to the gods.

They were placed on either side of one of the larger main streets, with Roman shrines on one side, and their Greek counterparts directly opposite them.

Due to popular demand, I also include several more modern buildings. A movie theater and arcade were place in it, and became quite popular with everyone. I had Leo make everything electronic with celestial bronze or imperial gold to avoid drawing unneeded attention to the city.

I probably shouldn't have worried with all the protection we had for it, but it wouldn't be me if I didn't try to plan for everything.

Terminus guarded the borders along with Leo's now rebuilt dragon Festus as well as some automatons. Terminus was allowed to perform his duties only when heavily medicated which lead to much more pleasant interactions with the god.

Originally everyone was worried about Festus going crazy again, but Leo assured everyone that the control disk was top of the line now. As it had been his dad who built it we all believed him, and managed to stop tensing up every time we saw Festus.

When everything was finally perfect by my standards, it had been one hundred years since we had lost Percy. I had to William for almost ninety years now, and was very happy.

I still always thought about Percy, but it was no longer out of regret or sadness. I now remembered all the goods time we had together and wish he could be here. I knew he would approve of William and get along well with him.

I knew William was originally worried that Percy would return and that he would lose me, but I knew that Percy and I would only be good friends if ever did come back. I eventually convinced William of this, and he gained to desire to meet Percy face to face shortly after.

With New Olympus finally completed, and the threat of wars seemingly behind us, William and myself finally began looking towards a future where we weren't ruled by our duties.

We began talking about what we wanted, and the topic of children came up several times. Neither of us felt we were ready for a child, so we did the next best thing for us, our own place.

Due to all the construction, there was rarely a person who had a place to themselves before everything was complete. I had often wound up sleeping on my old bunk in the Athena cabin as it was closest to my work.

With everything finished, William and I finally moved in together into an apartment in New Olympus overlooking the central plaza.

There are benefits to being the Official Architect you know.


	11. Chapter 11

Percy

When I had first faced Medusa all those years ago, I was scared, inexperienced, and not to mention only twelve.

Now though, I was so much more.

I dodge her claws easily one second and blocked the next, before finishing with a gash to her forearm. She backed up, and looked at her wound which was not closing.

"So," she hissed, "You have become powerful boy, more powerful than I had expected."

She was steadily backing up to give herself more room, which should have been my first warning.

"I doubt I'll be able to get any blood from you," she admitted with a hint of regret, "But I can still have my vengeance!"

With that she tore of the shawl she had on, making the fight incredibly dangerous.

I could probably had fended her off with my eyes closed like I did all that time ago against the cyclops, hellhounds, and dracanae. But here in the deepest part of Tartarus, I doubted I pull the same results as before.

So I did the next best thing, Riptide once again flew from my hand right as the shawl was removed. It forced Medusa to duck, and I ran for the essence on the altar.

I couldn't help but get a sense of Déjà vu at that. If there had been any fire I swear it would have been the same fight as the one I had in the temple. Just goes to show how stupid some monsters are I guess. Give the enemy a chance to become more dangerous is really smart if you get my drift.

I reached the altar, and once again I grabbed the orb that rested on it. The power contained within it flowed through me, right until Medusa smashed me away into a wall next to the entrance of the cave.

"So you know what the crystal was hmm?" Medusa said contemplatively, "I've been staring at it for years with no idea what it could do."

Well, that answered the question as to why she let me touch it.

"Yet you come here, and unlock its secrets in less than a second, which leads me to believe there have been others."

Maybe not as dumb as I had originally thought unfortunately. I felt her grab my shoulder.

"I will be generous Perseus. I will turn you to stone, and absorb the power of the crystal from it, and I will finally have the strength to rising from this hell hole, and throw Athena and all her children in!" She cackled maniacally, but stopped as I started to laugh as well, closing my eyes at the mirth I felt.

"What is this madness that has taken you?" she asked now holding me at arm's length.

Understandable as my laugh was that unnerving. It seemed to cause a large boom every time I laughed. I quickly stopped so Typhon wouldn't hear.

Then my eye snapped open and met hers. I got the immense satisfaction at seeing her shocked expression as she tried to back away from me.

"Impossible!" she shrieked. Trying to look anywhere but my eyes she began to stand. I shifted my position to directly in front of her, because I still couldn't flash anywhere annoyingly enough. Riptide appeared in my hand as I stood before Medusa while she was still on her knees and still staring at my eyes. I held Riptide to her throat, and merely grinned.

"Impossible," she said slightly quieter, still unable to look anywhere but my eyes.

I could see myself in her eyes, they were beautiful I realized, but all the more the dangerous because of that. I forced myself to look at my reflection in her eyes. I had known that she no longer had any power over me, but I was still shocked to see my appearance.

My eyes looked like miniature green suns, glowing brightly, but not truly burning. I could also see a light green haze escaping them, seemingly being directed away from the vertical center of my face. It gave my eyes an even more otherworldly look when combined with the original glow of them.

My eyes, combined with the void properties of my clothes, and the power crackling across Riptide made me look incredibly powerful and dangerous. I found myself humbled when I realized it was an accurate statement of the power I now wielded.

I somehow knew I was at the same level as the big three, and I could easily take on any of the other Olympians without breaking a sweat. I should explain that while I could easily beat any of the Olympians in a duel of swords now, fighting power against power was another matter entirely. It tends to take more out of you trying to blast you opponent into a puddle of water than to swing a blade with all your strength.

I forced myself to return to the here and now, with Medusa still staring at me with a blade at her throat. She began to say something, but I was tired.

I was tired of Tartarus, and I was tired of monsters.

Before she complete her first word I swung my sword so fast it didn't even blur, removing Medusa's head from her shoulders once again. Her body began to dissolve, while her head rolled towards me.

I bent over and picked it up still staring into its now blank eyes, deciding what I was going to do with this powerful spoil of war.

I finally made up my mind and once again focused my power, this time on the head. The head began to glow and shift until it had changed into a simple stone mask.

I held the mask up and concentrated slightly. The eye holes, while empty so they could be seen through, glowed brightly.

I knew that any who stood before the mask while it was active would be turned to stone if they looked at it. Pleased with my work, and concerned about the mask falling into the wrong hands, I enchanted it to work like Riptide. It would be in a place nobody could reach expect myself, and only when I summoned it to me.

"That should prevent a few problems," I thought to myself.

Then deciding not to put it off any longer, I closed my eyes and focused my powers once again.

I first masked my scent so monsters would not being able to find me. I didn't want to get into a fight every day if I could help it. I then proceeded to hide my soul from immortal sight. I had work to needed to be done without interference from my extended family. I missed my friends and family terribly, but I knew that I must make this journey without them.

I also had a feeling that a lot of time had passed while I was down here, and many changes had happened. I knew time passed by differently in different realms and I figured that was an even more extreme case in Tartarus.

Finally I willed myself out of the pit that was Tartarus. I could feel my body tingling as it converted to pure energy and I shot out of the pit and into the Underworld.

"Home sweet Home" I thought to myself.

* * *

Now that I was out of Tartarus, I knew I had to somehow get myself out of the underworld without being noticed.

Before I could take a single step though, I felt a chill at my back. I turned but I saw nothing.

"But that doesn't mean that there isn't anything there," I muttered as my eyes took their immortal form. The same form that Medusa had seen moments before her demise.

I now could see what I felt before. Several reapers from Tartarus seemed to have hitched a ride with me and looked eager to "thank me" for my services.

They all wore black cloaks which covered their skeleton bodies. I was annoyed to see they all wielded my least favorite weapon, the scythe.

"What I pity," I said out loud as they paused, "You escape from Tartarus only to be sent right back."

They clacked their teeth together and attacked as one.

In Tartarus, the reapers had been a dangerous foe in groups of any size. Outside of the pit though, they were very much reduced, especially without the element of surprise.

I once again began to perform the art form I had long perfected, the art of combat.

After dealing with a Titan on the other end of a scythe and without the benefit of Tartarus's power, these reapers were sorely outmatched.

I slashed the first two to dust, dodged attacks made by the next three, and parried the blow of the last one. After parrying I responded with an attack of my own by cutting the last one to attack in two vertically. The three that were left tried to circle around, until I shifted behind the leftmost one and stabbed it in the back. The other two weren't even phased by what I had done and tried to flank me.

I decided I deserved some personal satisfaction since I had expected to be done with monsters for at least a day. I raised Riptide which was held in my left hand, and naturally pointed it at the leftmost reaper.

My right hand glowed with power, something I really shouldn't be doing thanks to the energy signature it gave off. It could easily ruin my plan to return to the world silently if the gods noticed and decided to follow it.

My care level was low at the moment though, so I released the power I held and watched it dissolve the right most reaper into bubbles. I chuckled a bit and focused my attention on the left one.

I was not surprised when it attacked right as I looked at it, it was probably moving when I blasted its buddy. It couldn't do much though as Riptide was still at the ready to block anything that came my way. I deflected the overhead swing it used on me, and with a quick slice of Riptide I was alone again.

I was surprised that when the last one dissolved, that its cloak had been left behind. I had killed many of them while I was in Tartarus, but none of them had ever dropped anything.

I immediately put it on, and the blackness grew deeper until it matched the void look of my clothes. I also felt something was different now and I reached out my senses. I then realized that I was completely invisible at the moment, just like the reapers.

The difference though was that I could control when I turned invisible or not. Not to mention with my power fueling it, it could almost match the level achieved by Uncle Hades Helm of Darkness.

"Well," I said to no one in particular, "This just got a whole lot easier."

No longer worried about being seen I set out to explore the Underworld. I figured it would be an excellent place to gather information since I had probably spent quite a long time in Tartarus. I had gone so long without seeing the sun, I figured I could live without it for a little longer.

My scouting efforts were fruitful but painful.

I found out that I had been stuck in that accursed pit for over one hundred and fifty year.

Most of my friends were still alive though. I was proud to find out that they had been offered immortality.

I was saddened to hear about the death of my mother, but she had a daughter a few years after I disappeared and had been happy about it.

I too was happy when I found out that my not-so-new half-sister was still around and still young. She had impressed Athena so much that she had been made her lieutenant.

Then I found out that a new camp, Camp Olympus had been created ten years after my fall, and it catered to both Greek and Roman demigods.

The camp always had anywhere between nine hundred to one thousand campers at a time. Everyone felt like family there, so there were few problems with living among so many people.

I learned that my old friends were not only immortal, but the leaders of the camp.

Many great heroes had grown up under their instruction, though the most shocking to me was when I found out that they all strived to be like me.

Apparently some nameless author had managed to find out everything that had happened during my adventure. The detail had been so accurate, that everyone suspected Annabeth had done it to honor my memory. The only thing that killed that rumor was the fact that she had not been on my third quest, which was as detailed as the rest. I was a little embarrassed, but also touched that the campers thought so highly of me.

I then learned about the wonders of New Olympus, the city that replaced Rome.

Apparently Annabeth had designed it from the ground up with her husband right by her side. I was sad at the thought that Annabeth did not wind up being with me. I knew that no matter what though, we would still be friends, and I was happy she found someone who makes her happy.

I also found out that I had a new half-sister, Poseidon and Amphitrite had made up over all the children that Poseidon had sired on the side, and was fine with all the ones he sired now, because he had given her a beautiful daughter.

A goddess whose beauty rivaled that of Aphrodite, and with a bubbly personality which matched her domains, the sea breeze and shallow waters. Apparently Triton was pleased to, as he took great pleasure in sending those who got to close to her without his father's permission packing.

The only exception, and end to this behavior came from when Triton went up against Nico. Apparently my sister Saphi had been crushing on him for quite a while, to nervous to tell him directly. Triton had found her hiding behind a pillar watching Nico while he sat in one of the gardens of Olympus, and decided to prevent anything from happening.

He had ignored her yells to stop, but they had managed to give Nico an excellent heads up. After a long fight that absolutely destroyed the gardens and drew the ire of Dementer. Nico had his sword at Triton's throat among the ruins of battle, which apparently consisted of reeling shadows, charred bones, and saltwater everywhere.

Nico had eventually managed to get the details of why Triton had attacked him. After a few awkward face to face encounters with Saphi he had finally asked her out. One thing eventually lead to another and so on until they had both wound up married and extremely happy.

I also got the privilege of hearing about the other pairings the happened to my friends.

Piper and Jason I was not surprised to learn tied the knot. What did surprise me was they had three immortal children already. I snickered to myself when I heard that, as I was trying to imagine the traits the kids would pick up from their parents.

Frank and Hazel had also gotten married which was not a huge shocker to me. They currently had no children, as they don't want to have to worry about their safety.

The one marriage that did surprise me was Leo to Reyna.

I had never expected those two to ever get together, but I suppose opposites do attract. They had one immortal child who was quite often mistaken for a Hermes child. He inherited most of the skills of his father and mother, but somehow was blessed, or cursed, with a great desire to prank.

I learned all this, plus quite a bit more in the underworld.

Who knew ghosts could be so chatty with one another?

I decided that the time had come, I was ready to see the world again.


	12. Chapter 12

Percy

After a fairly quick exit from the underworld through some not well-known doors that Ouranos knew about, I found myself outside of Los Angeles looking straight at the city.

It was dark outside, and even LA looks beautiful when all the lights were on.

I would have kept looking, but a sharp pain came from my sides. I looked down where the pain was coming from, expecting to see a stab wound, but nothing was there.

I then noticed that my entire body was starting to ache, I quickly thought about why this was happening, and the answer came quickly.

I, despite all my accomplishments, was still a demigod.

While it didn't matter while I was in Tartarus, nor the underworld, which are realms exempt from the rules all together. Here in the mortal realm, my body could not handle the power I now wielded.

I deduced, that I had three days before my body gave out, less if I used my power.

I needed to become immortal, but how?

I couldn't return to Olympus yet, not while I don't possess all of the essence at least.

I thought long and hard before it hit me, the Golden Apples guarded by Ladon.

It would be incredibly dangerous, especially in my state right now, but it was my best chance.

I somehow managed to hobble to a pay phone and called a cab. When he arrived, I told him to take me to San Francisco and that if he made it before dawn, I would pay double the fare. Once again I questioned if such things should be said to a taxi driver. For just like the last time I took a taxi on the west coast, there were only a few times that the speedometer dropped below ninety-five.

I fell asleep in the back, and did not wake until we reached where I wished to go, right outside the garden of the Hesperides. I paid the cabby what we agreed on plus a large tip, as I had found out that I could make the drachmas convert to any currency I wanted. Which was pretty darn useful in this type of situation.

I sat down Indian style as I waited for the sun to come up. I knew that while most people think twilight happens only once a day, during the transition from day too night. If one was fast, they could catch the ray of twilight when night turned too day, thought the period that was twilight was much shorter than the day too night version.

Soon enough it happened, and I was through the doorway to the garden instantly. I slowly walked in assessing the lay of the land.

I saw Ladon curled up at the base of the tree, seeming to sleep deeply, but I knew better. That dragon would be up in less than a second if it felt anyone to close to the tree. I also saw the Hesperides sleeping underneath the other trees populating the garden. Apparently they had grown lax in watching for intruders during the morning, as the period of twilight was so short.

I decided not to waste anymore time, Riptide appeared in my hands as I rushed Ladon with a war cry.

You might be asking yourself why I didn't strike silently first, it was for the simple matter that I had no idea what part of Ladon would be the most dangerous when he slept. I could have easily struck the wrong part of him and have done no damage. I certainly didn't want him to immediately spear me with his poisoned tailed out of shock.

No, for this feat of strength, I needed him awake. I jumped right as all of his heads spit poison right where I was before, rocketing forward and removing six of his heads from the hundred he had.

"Only ninety-four left to go," I muttered to myself as I hit the ground.

Ladon smartened up and began spitting poison all around me while several of his head lunged towards me, trying force me to move into the poison. I did better than dodge him though. I shifted my position so I was on one of his heads and I swung Riptide in a large arc again, and removed five more heads from the dragon. Including the one I was currently standing on.

As I fell, I felt poison just miss my hair. I shifted my position again when I had reached the halfway mark to the ground. More poison tearing through the space I had just occupied with that accused tail of his finally making an appearance. It had struck below the poison in an attempt to make sure I couldn't simply twist in the air and avoid everything.

I made my position known to the dragon as I chuckled and reached to grab an Apple from the branch I was sitting on. Ladon immediately lunged at me with all his heads. He didn't dare use poison or his tail as it might harm the tree he protected.

I smirked and jumped down, just avoiding the teeth now above me as I swung Riptide upwards and removed another three heads. I landed in the water with an evil grin as Ladon's remain heads looked down at me.

I gestured with my free hand, and the water around the tree began to rise. It moved faster and fast until a vortex of water surrounded the tree. Ladon could no longer see me as I had allowed myself to be pulled up with the water. Round and round I spun around the tree, removing the remaining heads of Ladon each time I came around.

The power surrounding Riptide prevented the heads I had already cut from magically growing back, just like the last dragon I fought. Eventually only one head remained and I stopped the vortex that surrounded the tree and shifted my position so I was in front of the last head.

The last head bowed down in terror to me, for it understood the power I wielded over it. I nodded towards it, and with a wave of my empty hand, all the heads grew back. Ladon looked at me with confusion until he realized at what I had done, then he bowed all of his heads to me in gratitude. It looked surprisingly like a stadium doing the wave.

I went and collected all eleven apples from the tree, putting all but one into the bag, and I prepared to eat it.

"Stop," said the eldest of the Hesperides. "You may not eat that apple unless give permission from the gods."

She didn't recognize me because my cloak still covered up my face, which I was thankful for.

"Why would I need the approval of the gods?" I replied deepening my voice so she would not recognize it.

"Because that is the will of the Gardens, and if you do not obey the will, we will destroy you." was her answer, as all her sister stood besides her.

As one they raised their right hand, power flickering in it. I considered the tone of her voice and I realized that the only reason the gods had a say in this, was because they were more powerful than the Hesperides.

Me? I just chuckled and waved my other hand at them, while the hand that held the apple brought it towards my mouth. I blasted the Hesperides backwards about twenty yards. While that happened, I took a bite of the apple.

It was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted, or rather the most delicious fruit I had ever tasted. It was juicy, yet none dripped away, the crispness was otherworldly, and the sense of contentment it brought was worth more to me than all the drachmas in the world.

I wished I could savor it more, but the Hesperides were starting to get up. So using my powers as a "man" Artemis would say sarcastically, I finished the best fruit in the world in less than five seconds. Immediately I felt my body begin to change, the aches and pains fled, while I felt more powerful than ever. Proof that Ouranos's power had finally settled in the way it was supposed to.

The Hesperides got up looking furious, their eyes immediately looking towards the core I still held in my hand while I removed the seeds from it.

"You may be immortal now boy, but you we not be leaving," the eldest hissed at me.

I merely shrugged, the seeds now safely deposited in a hidden pocket I had willed into my clothes, and gestured with my left-hand again.

Once again I blasted all the Hesperides backwards. About fifty yards this time, though I had made sure that none of them had hit a tree, and calmly walked out of the garden of the Hesperides.


	13. Chapter 13

Percy

I was walking aimlessly through unknown streets as I was beginning to make plans to find the other pieces of essence. I wanted to gather them as quickly as possible and return to my friends. Not to mention show the gods the power I had gained in Tartarus. That all changed when I heard a noise from a large park that I was slowly approaching. What I saw would change my life even more than Ouranos already had.

A little red-headed girl probably six at the oldest, being pushed aside by a Satyr. The Satyr immediately shrieked in pain as the hellhound they were running from caught hold of him. The hellhound shook its head from side to side and when it stopped, I knew the Satyr was dead.

It became even more obvious when its body dissolved into a dandelion. The hellhound turned to focus on the little girl, but there was no way I would let anything happen to her.

Thanks to my new immortal body, I could finally flash anywhere I wanted to go. Which was good, because she was well out of the range of my shifting ability. I appeared besides her, putting my hand on her shoulder as the hellhound stared blankly at me.

The girl twisted her head to see who was touching her. I looked down and smiled gently at her while patting her shoulder. I then turned my gaze back to the hellhound, which was almost fully recovered from its shock. I whistled and it seemed like nothing happened at first.

The hellhound snarled and started to crouch while the girl whimpered. She threw her arms tightly around my leg for comfort as she stared at the hellhound. Soundly a loud howl came from seemingly nowhere, and the girl hugged my leg even tighter as I rubbed her back to comfort her.

Suddenly an old friend came barreling out of the trees slamming into the hellhound. The girl gasped and I chuckled while still rubbing her back as Mrs. O'Leary managed to pin the other hellhound down and tear out its throat. It began to dissolve into dust as Mrs. O'Leary turned her head towards me and started wagging her tail.

"Woof," boomed from her massive mouth as she landed in front of me covering me with kisses as I laughed. The girl was terrified by my pet at first but as she saw me laughing she began to smile. I reached down, picking her up and putting her on my shoulders.

"Say hello to Mrs. O'Leary little one," I told her.

"Hi Mrs. O'Leary," she said timidly, now nervous. That nervous tone changed immediately to shrieks of joy as my beloved pet began licking her face as well.

When she was longer being licked, she kept giggling which made me very happy. I was sure I had a large grin on my face while it happened. I started walking towards the middle of the park.

"Where are we going?" she asked me while she held on to my head with her hands.

"We are going to make camp, and then we are going to talk little one." was my response.

I felt her nod, and I kept walking as the trees because thicker and thicker. The park grass slowly disappeared and became replaced with bare earth, moss, and leaves. We had left the park, and we now in a forest.

"We are we?" she asked looking around.

"We are on the outskirts of Flagstaff Arizona. We just traveled about six hundred miles." I could feel her shock as we came to a stop.

I took her from her spot on my shoulder, and set her on top of Mrs. O'Leary. She started giggling again while she rubbed behind my pets ears. Mrs. O'Leary loved this so much, she immediately lay down and started arching her head, encouraging the little one to continue. I smiled slightly and began setting up camp.

When I was done, I had a large tent set up next to a fairly large fire that I had to be careful with making. I made sure that its magical properties prevented it from being a portal or a beacon. It wouldn't do for Hestia to find out I was back so soon. I then began preparing dinner while I saw the little one doze off into Mrs. OLeary's fur. After about an hour of preparation, I was done with the food.

"Wake up little one" I called over the fire, "Dinner is ready."

She immediately woke up, and quickly moved to get some food. She had a healthy appetite, which probably came from being on the run from monsters. She immediately grabbed a plate that had a medium size steak on it with potatoes and string beans. She grabbed a clean chalice and filled it up with water I had in a large barrel. When she sat down I also helped myself to the food and we ate silently.

When we were both done, I grabbed the plates and chalices and tossed both of them into a container. Her eyes widened as water began to splash from the circular container and dish-rags started moving around cleaning everything. I looked at her, clearing my throat to get her attention, and began speaking.

"Well we might as well get introductions out of the way, I am Percy. Percy Jackson. And what is your name?"

Looking slightly sad the girls replied, "My name is Lily, but I don't have a last name."

She began to cry and I moved over to her picking her up and holding her close.

"Shh, Shh, I'm here, I'm here." I whispered to her.

Eventually she quieted down and through her sniffles told me about what had happened. Apparently she never knew either of her parents. She was raised in an orphanage, the only thing known about herself was her name. She began having problems with scary people when she was five. Eventually, she found out she was going to be adopted, but that joy turned to terror when she saw that her soon to be adoptive parents were cyclops.

She ran away that night and after somehow surviving for a month on her own, she found Steve a week ago, the satyr that tried to protect her from the hellhound. He had tried to lead her to several safe places, but they could never make it to them. The monsters always seemed to get there ahead of them. When she was finished she was holding on to Percy again, with her head buried in his chest.

As he stared down at her head, his heart went out for the little girl who had lost the only one to ever care about her. He was determined to keep her safe and happy from this moment on. The essences of Ouranos had waited thousands of years to be found, they could wait a few more.

"Lily," I said. She looked up at me with puffy red eyes.

"How would you like to be apart of my family." I gestured towards Mrs. OLeary and myself.

Her eyes lit up instantly and I could feel her quivering with excitement. "Really!?" she squealed.

"Really really." I said hugging her again. "Welcome to the family Lily Jackson."

She beamed as she heard her full name for the first time. "Thanks Daddy," she said.

I looked down at her, surprised that she accepted me as her dad already. Then I began to smile again.

"Your very welcome," I whispered to her, "My dearest daughter."

Her smile got even wider at that if it was possible. We both began to laugh as we were suddenly pushed over and licked as Mrs. OLeary wanted in on the fun as well. After another hour of talking, I noticed my new daughter began to look tired. So I picked her up and brought her into my tent. The same one I used in Tartarus, it was enchantedto be much larger on the inside.

It was a complete inside of an apartment with a kitchen, bathrooms, and a single bedroom. There was only one bed in my room at the moment, but that changed when I waved my hand and a smaller one materialized. I gestured and all the dirt and sweat on her body from running away from the monsters disappeared leaving her sparkling clean. Her tattered clothes replaced with pajamas that were light blue, and had creatures of the sea printed on them. What made the pajamas even cooler was that the sea creatures where constantly moving across the fabric.

With that done, I tucked her in, kissed her on the forehead, and whispered "Good Night Lily."

She smiled in her sleep and sighed contently. I walked over to my bed, willing myself into my pajamas. Mine were as dark as the night sky, with constellations all across them. Like Lily's pajamas, the constellations on mine moved as well, but at a much slow pace.

After admiring then for a few minutes, I hopped into bead and crawled beneath the covers. I noticed that Mrs. OLeary had shrunk down to her more portable size, and was sleeping on a doggy bed I had kept there, to remind me of home while I was in the pit.

I smiled at that, then fell into a deep dreamless sleep.

Artemis

It started out as a normal day on Olympus. I decided to take a walk with my hunters, a nice normal walk through the gardens and temples. No monsters to hunt and nothing to fight.

The hunt had always kept life interesting, but it seemed even to me downright tame compared to the trials my huntress had been through after the giants war. Fifty years after the war, we were given the task of hunting down all of the lycanthropes, a task not made easy by the cunning of our foe.

After five years of tracking across the country which involved painful skirmishes and the loss of several of my beloved sisters, we thought we had cornered of foe. It turned out that we were the ones that were tricked. I had been dragged across the border into Alaska where my powers dwindled away to nothing.

My brave girls followed me despite the danger, and many paid for my foolishness with their lives. We eventually emerged victorious, and I took great pleasure in removing the Lycan King's head from his shoulders. I weeped for weeks afterwards for the lives that were lost, for I knew it was my fault.

Eventually though my tears dried, and we continued hunting. The years passed slowly, for each year brought more losses than gains. The monsters seem to grow stronger, or perhaps we just grew weaker, as time grew on.

Eventually it became so bad that we arrived Olympus five years ago, intending to rest. It quickly became apparent that more time was needed for us to recover. We were down to only nine hunters, the lowest it had ever been, I had stopped receiving recruits fifty years ago, when New Olympus had been completed.

The demigods now had a safe place to live besides camp. A place where they go grow old and have families without having to worry about the dangers of the outside world. I was glad that many women had found a safe home, even if they did want to spend their time with boys. I was saddened though at the thought that someday there might not even be a hunt.

I was suddenly broken out of my thoughts by a buzzing sound in my head. I felt the summons to the throne room that came with it and after bidding my hunters to return to my palace, I flashed myself into the throne room already at my godly size.

The council started off as it always did with the little arguments and gossip, but all became quiet as Zeus raised one of his hands.

"Olympians," my father began, "it has come to my attention that a powerful being has been at the Gardens of the Hesperides."

This got my attention. I never like the other brats for what they did to Zoe, but I knew that she would be concerned for her sisters.

"Apparently," father continued, "A man entered the gardens while the Hesperides slept during the morning twilight."

"Idiots," I thought to myself. "Never let your guard down."

I turned to face my father fully. "What happened father? Did this man attempt to rape them?" was my scathing question.

Many of the gods glared at me for my instigation that was all a man would do.

I felt slightly bad for saying such things with my uncle Poseidon in the room, as he had always been kind to women. Not to mention my brother Apollo, as he had only tried to rape a maiden while under the effects of a love arrow shot my Eros. He may be a womanizer, but he had never hurt any of the ones he had been with. The others though had acted like pigs on multiple occasions.

"No daughter," Zeus said looking more irritated than the others at my remark, "He instead attacked Ladon, waking him before he made the first blow."

At the, the other gods began to mutter, and I lost myself in my thoughts, "Who is this man bold enough to attack a dragon such a Ladon head on, without even the advantage of trickery." He was either very brave, or very foolish. My heart was set on foolish. This was a man we were talking about.

"Furthermore, the man defeated Ladon," My eyebrows shot up in surprise at this. No one had ever beaten Ladon before. Even us gods were wary of fighting that creature.

"And picked all the apples from the tree." was the next bit of information from my father, but I could barely process it.

I was still reeling from the fact that Ladon had been beaten. It seemed impossible, for Ladon was nigh on undefeated. Even that swine Hercules had to resort to tricking Atlas to bypass him.

"The Hesperides tried to prevent him from eating an apple without our consent."

"Good," I thought to myself. At least they remembered to do their job.

"But according to them he merely waved his hand, and blew them back so he could finish the apple." I grew angry at this, though I would have probably done the same. The fact that a man had attack a woman made my blood boil.

"They tried to stop him from leaving, so judgment could be passed upon him, but his power seemed to grow even greater in potency after he ate the apple, and he blew them even farther away." My fury grew even greater at this. Brats or not, they were female to.

"At which point he simply left the gardens with the ten other apples." With the explanation over with, every god had a thoughtful look on their face. It was not difficult to guess what they were thinking.

I cleared my throat, and all the other gods looked at me. "I would be happy to hunt this being father, at the very least I might be able to figure out who he is and what he wants."

"While beating the immortal life out of him for striking a woman," was my unspoken thought.

Continuing on, "At best, I will be able to bring him before you in chains with the Apples returned to safe hands."

I began to imagine in greater detail the horrors I would visit on this man for his arrogance.

My father studied me for a bit, his face strangely blank for once, then said, "Very Well, hunt well my daughter. This meeting is over."

I smiled slightly as I flashed back to my palace to gather up the hunters.

Once I had gathered the hunters and we were all geared up, we began our journey to the Garden of the Hesperides.

It went faster than most of our other trips, as we had fewer Hunters. It meant that we were less likely to be attacked, while at the same time allowing us more stealth without even trying.

We managed to reach the outside of the gardens in two days time due to a combination of using my chariot and getting lucky with public transportation. Normally I would have asked my brother for a ride, or have taken us all the way in my chariot.

After all those years of rest however, I wanted to make sure that we were still in practice. I need not have worried, the girls had kept training over the years, often using the forests in my palace as sparring and hunting ground.

We started outside of the garden, as there was no easy way in without it being twilight and that twilight was still a few hours away. We quickly saw that there had been signs of a battle, or at least a struggle.

I could smell the power of the wild and when I saw the dandelion, I realized that it had once been a satyr. Which meant that there was probably a half blood involved as well. Taking a look at the ground, I noticed several things, one was the footprints that had been next to the cloven hoofs for a few hundred feet.

They were small, so I figured that the demigod was probably young. I noticed that those seemed to stop next to the start of a set much larger set of footprints. The thing I could not understand though was how the large footprint got there.

The ground had been moist at the time, as footprints of this quality didn't usually show up in dry earth. But even though there was dirt all around for at least ten feet, there was no indication of where the larger one came from.

This lead me to believe someone had simply appeared there, as they were not deep enough to suggest the larger person had jumped from a tree. The cloven footsteps had ended right where the dandelion was, that much was clear. Though the curious part being that there were two sets of hellhound tracks. One clearly following the cloven and smaller foot prints, with the other coming from the direction of the nearby park.

Putting all the pieces together I explained to the hunters my findings, "It looks like a satyr and a young half-blood were running from a hellhound. The satyr is clearly dead, judging from were the footprints end and where the dandelion is. But these large footprints intrigue me, they show that a being simply appeared right at this spot. The spacing in between the footprints shows that this being walked, not ran, into the forest. So clearly the danger passed before he had started walking away. The interesting part is how did the danger pass? The man clearly didn't move except to walk away from here and the second hellhound's track lead away from where I assume the first hellhound perished. The second hellhound doesn't seem to be chasing the remaining two, it merely followed them based on these imprints. It almost seems to have been friendly, as if neither the hellhound or the man were running, it must have been right next to him the entire time. I would also guess that judging from the lack of the little one's footprints after reaching the larger being, that the larger one had carried the smaller one in some way."

"But that makes no sense my lady," came from Thalia. "There has only been one friendly hellhound in the world, and she disappeared over seventy years ago. And without her master she wasn't nearly as friendly as before"

I nodded sadly, I heard how Percy's pet Mrs. O'Leary had become more and more viscous without her master around. She was due to be put down because of the dangers an uncontrolled hellhound presented, but she had managed to escape into the shadows. She had not been seen since by anyone.

"I do not know my lieutenant, but I do know they could not have gotten far." With that said, I began to follow the tracks into the park.

It was not long though before I lost them to the grass and the newly fallen leaves. Growing irritated I ordered my hunters to search the entire park for clues. Unfortunately, it was a large park, and twilight was nearly upon us before all the hunters reported back, no one finding any hint of a trail.

I raised my eyes to the heavens and sighed, this was not how I wanted our first hunt back to be. We quickly made our way back to the garden and entered it shortly before it turned to night and the doorway was closed.

We quickly set up camp as the Hesperides approached us with something akin to malice in their eyes. That changed when they saw I was among the girls and they quickly bowed in respect. As much as they hate other women, they were not stupid enough to show it in front of me. I looked around the garden an noticed that it seemed to be in perfect order. There were no signs of a struggle and the biggest surprise came from when I looked over at Ladon.

The dragon was awake and staring at me, but what had shocked me were that he had all of his heads. I was going to yell at the Hesperides for leading us on a wild goose chase, then I noticed that there weren't any apples on the tree and I held myself back.

"Hesperides," I said with an air of respect that was completely false and I was pretty sure they knew it. Not like I cared or anything though.

"What happened here? Ladon appears to be fine, yet there are no apples." I waited impatiently as they told me the entire story.

When they finished I was incredulous, this man had defeated Ladon fair and square, then proceeded to heal the dragon to make sure the tree was still protected. I felt a little bit guilty when I realized how harshly I had judged him when I heard that the Hesperides had attacked him first and that he was only acting in self-defense.

I realized how much restraint he had actually shown by not cutting them to pieces, as I was sure it was well within his range of abilities. But I was still annoyed that I had no idea who this man was. The Hesperides were no help as they said he had worn a hood.

Sighing, I told my hunters to get some sleep. I found myself quickly falling into Morpheus's realm as well, but I told myself before I entered that we would not be spending the night here in the garden again any time soon.

We searched for two more days in the surrounding areas after we woke and left the garden. True to my word we began camping in the park that we had been at before. The girls didn't complain as I knew they had all been uneasy around the Hesperides.

We found no more clues about where this mysterious man, or where the beings in the park went. I had a feeling that the man and the large figure in the park were the same person, but without any evidence I kept my mouth shut.

I was annoyed about our failure to find anything about either two events. I had hoped that our return to Hunting would have met with more success.

I couldn't feel to dejected though. I had missed the thrill of the Hunt and the excitement that came with it.

For the first time in many years I felt truly happy and content.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Hey everyone this is Peter.**

**I am just putting in an author's note to inform you that chapter 17 for the story is coming along quite well but I am taking my time so that it is perfect. I also wanted to inform you that I am taking a vacation for the next 6-8 weeks and I will not be updating unless I get internet.**

**Also a reminder to vote on the poll if you want to see this story updated.**

**-Peter**

Percy

It had been ten years since I had adopted my dearest daughter. Ten years since I have searched for the essence of Ouranos. I know I had been eager to see all of my friends as soon as possible. My love for my daughter and my dedication to keeping her safe overrode all other feelings.

The day after I adopted her I was wondering who her godly parent could be. I wasn't really concerned who it was, they didn't deserve my daughter as their daughter as well. My interest in her parentage stemming from the desire to know the best way to teach her over the next few years. I shifted through the knowledge of Ouranos for a good five minutes before I came up with a fool-proof way to determine ones divine parentage.

I had woken up early, so Lily was sleep asleep while a created a table of stone that reacted to the divine powers within a demigod. When she woke, I had her place her hand on the tablet and we watched as hundreds of different symbol shifted across the stone before the symbols of magic glowed brightly at us. My adoptive daughter was a child of Hecate, a goddess whose children I didn't always get along with, mostly the empousa kind.

I know what you are probably thinking, how can I possibly teach Lily about magic when I didn't know the first thing about it? That was the kicker though, I did know about magic. I knew a lot about it courtesy of Ouranos's memories. If I had to hazard a guess, I might know more about magic that Hecate herself. I didn't immediately start training her in magic though. It would be a few years until she could properly control the energy required to master it.

I instead started out with something much more comfortable to me, melee combat. I gave Lily one of the daggers that I had claimed in Tartarus, and then I proceeded to teach her everything I knew about it. She progressed quickly, had I not known any better I would have said that she was a daughter of Athena based on how well she handled that dagger, she reminded me a lot about Annabeth in that regard.

She learned the different grips that could be used with a dagger, and the situations to use those grips in. She became good enough that she could disarm a person using any type of weapon with her trusty dagger. When she had fully mastered it, I knew she could easily hold her own against opponents using larger weapons.

For mastering the dagger, I gave her an imperial silver one I had spent months creating named Silver Light. The blade was a foot long exactly and decorated with different flora with the hilt wrapped in silver wire and a ruby on each side. I had originally planned on spending a year teaching her about melee combat with a dagger, but she had mastered it faster than I expected a six-year-old to be able to.

Combined with the fact she was too small to wield a sword, I decided to focus on the ranged aspect of combat. I also decided to go a bit easier on her during the weekends. I had her practicing every day with the dagger until she had mastered it with little time for fun. I was originally guilty at first, but I knew I would not rest easy until my little girl could protect herself. She now had the weekends to do whatever she wished as long as I was there with her. We were on the road a lot, so weekends usually involved use exploring the new places.

Normally I would have been no help at all when it came to a bow, but I wasn't normal anymore. Under my tutoring, Lily was able to hit the bulls-eye every time the second day in. With a lot more practice she could hit it from anywhere, no matter what was going on around her. Snow storm, heavy winds, being shot at herself, running, jumping, even swimming didn't phase her, she was a natural archer.

"Note to self, do not let Lily set foot near the hunters until she is older." I thought to myself.

When she had fully mastered the bow, I did the same thing I did when she mastered the knife. I created a bow with an imperial silver shaft decorated with vines, with a bow-string made up of thread I had woven from fur from the Neman Lion.

Yeah my luck was that bad or good depending on how you looked at it. I killed the beast quickly while my daughter was studying the other subjects I was drilling into her. Math, geography, science, and a few subject they didn't always teach in school like metal working and how to read Greek and Latin.

Back on subject, I had killed the beast while she was studying and managed to sneak its pelt into the tent without her noticing. I had willed some of the fur to part from itself while leaving the rest locked in a chest for a future project. About an hour of high quality weaving later, voila, indestructible bowstring. With such powerful objects making up the bow, I decided that the arrows could be higher quality than most. So when I gave her the bow, I explained to her how the arrows worked, because I did not give her a quiver to go with it.

"These arrows," I told her, "Are tipped with imperial silver. You remember what I told you about Imperial Silver?" She nodded at me.

"These arrows act similarly to my sword Riptide. When you shoot them, they will always return to you. It may take a while depending on the situation, but they will always return. Now, you must be wondering where these arrows are?" She nodded at me looking excited.

"Take aim at the target Lily." I waved my hand, and a target appeared a few hundred feet away.

She immediately raised her bow and waited for me to continue. "Now imagine an arrow ready to be drawn back."

She concentrated for a second and, with a silver glow, an arrow appeared right where her hands were in position, ready to be drawn back. She complied,and we both watched the arrow strike the bull eyes. After a few second, the arrow glowed again, and disappeared.

"Again," I told her.

She repeated her actions for about ten more shots before she got the hang of summoning the arrow. The target quickly became overloaded on arrows as her speed was now only limited by how fast she could draw back and release the bowstring. She turned back to me grinning, and I couldn't help but grin back.

"There are exactly two hundred arrows that you can call upon," I continued, "So you should have a hard time running out with that many and the magic in the arrows. If for some reason your arrows are slow in returning to you, there is a number on the side of the bow that shows how many are left for you to summon."

She nodded again, and began to run off to our personal archery range to play with her bow some more as the target I had summoned was about to fall apart. I waved my hand again and it disappeared as I began to walk after my daughter feeling immensely proud of her.

After Lily had mastered the bow we progressed into knife throwing, and while it was a little more difficult for her, through her hard work, she eventually mastered that art as well. She could throw it with the same accuracy as her arrows and could almost rival the speed of her new bow. Like the previous two weapons, when she showed me that she had mastered the throwing knives, I granted her the weapons.

Her test that how shown me her mastery was a feat that involved her free-falling into a lake after jumping of a large boulder. While she was upside down, she managed to hit a bulls-eye on all ten targets on the way down. What made it even more amazing was that it wasn't just a single bulls eye on all the targets, there were an average of three, with no misses and nothing but the bulls-eye.

For that I made her four throwing knife sheaths that was similarly enchanted like her bow. The knives would return to the sheaths after a unset amount of time, clean and ready for action. The sheaths I had fashioned out of simple silver and titanium, as it would have been pointless to make them out of imperial silver.

The knives themselves however, were made out of imperial silver. Each one was sharp enough to split a hair, and all had either the sun or moon etched onto both sides of the blade. The sheaths held ten knives at a time, and I had her place one on each shoulder, and the last two on both sides of her waist.

Thanks to all of the training we were doing, her birthday came faster than we thought and she turned seven. I was happy for my daughter and I tried to give her the best birthday I could.

I took her into the ocean with me, and showed her all the wonders of the sea. I knew she liked it because I could feel her all of her emotions while I maintained the energy that was required to allow her to breath under water. Not to mention she kept begging me to take her back the next few days. To end her birthday, I gave her the first birthday-present she had ever received. A book of magic.

"As you grow older," I told her as she sat on my lap, "The book will grow larger as well, filling itself with more secrets of magic, study it well my dear."

She stared at me with wide eyes then hugged me tightly whispering, "Thank you daddy."

The next day I began instructing her on how to use and control the magic that lay dormant inside of her. It was a long process due to not being able to spend much time on it per day. She was almost done with her other studies and I wanted her to finish those first as they would help her with magic in ways she didn't know. She was almost halfway through calculus, not to mention done with chemistry and well on her way through physics, the subjects that could help her understand magic.

She still practiced daily with her dagger, throwing knives, and bow, as she had no wish to grow rusty with them. Sometimes I think she was more interested in pushing her equipment to the limits but I couldn't complain if that got the job done. I grew concerned though when I realized that she was learning nothing from it.

I eventually cut down the time she had to use her old weapons, as it was also starting to cut into the time I wanted her to spend learning new things. In a shocking move to her, I put the lessons on how to use new weapons on hold. She did not understand my intentions from it until I began teaching her martial arts.

Another year passed and she turned eight. She had managed to earn a black belt in every fighting form, as well as master the basics of magic. A few day before her birthday she had also finished all of her studies of the mortal realm. Honestly, even though I have seen her use magic and saw the results on the stone tablet myself it was hard to believe she wasn't a child of Athena.

On the morning her eight birthday, the magic book grew larger as I had promised, filled with even more knowledge for her to devour and master. I did not allow my daughter to read it though as it was her birthday, and I had other plans. I took her to Disney Land for the first time, and she was enthralled by all the rides. She seemed to love the tea cups ride the most and I didn't think I would ever walk straight again after the tenth time riding it.

We stayed there all day until night was upon us, then we watched the firework show with the music playing loudly in the background. It wasn't as good as the firework show at camp, but sharing it with my daughter made up for it. We returned to camp afterwards, at which point I gave her the present I made specifically for the occasion. Clothes made from my second pelt I won from the Nemean Lion.

I had altered them so they would always stay clean and would always be in the style my daughter wanted. She pranced around for hours before I was finally able to get her to sleep, changing her clothes faster than I thought any mortal could think. She may be a heck of a fighter, but she was still my little girl at heart.

She never wore anything but the lion skin clothes after that birthday, for no other armor or clothes came close to comparing with it. She never did wear the same appearance more than once every few months though, a trait that I am fairly sure would cause Aphrodite to squeal in delight.

The day after her birthday, I began to teach her in the martial art combat style using the various weapons of the world, as well as steeping up her training in the world of magic. I started by teaching her how to use Incantations, as before when she used magic it was simply to use it and bring it forth into the world.

Now she would be learning about how to shape it into whatever she desired. It was a long process, fraught with massive fireballs and the occasional uncontrollable constructs. When we finished though, with finished being relative as there was still more to learn, she was able to bend magic to her will almost as easily as a god. Though without the same level of power of course.

Her test to show that she was able to move onto the next step had her creating balls of fire that crashed into balls of lightning, all the while she levitating in the air. For her finale, she let herself fall onto the lake she was currently hovering above. When she hit the surface it held her as easily as it held me and the rest of the water erupted from it into the air where she promptly froze it, giving the lake an appearance of having a giant bowl on top of it.

With that I knew she had shown both her power and control over the magic she wielded, and began making the preparations for the next stage in her training, runes.

It was around when we started runes that I realized that while I was doing an excellent job of teaching Lily, I had not practiced with or help develop my own powers.

I decided to rectify this with whatever spare time I had, which wasn't much honestly.

I already knew what I was capable of, but knowing and doing are to different things.

I decided that the best starting point would be my water powers as they came to me the most naturally. When I accessed Ouranos's memories about water, I was shocked with how little I knew about my own heritage.

"Water can take any form, hold any shape, and overcome any obstacle," I said out-loud when I realized this.

I began to slowly but surely master the power that is water. Vapor-Travel came easily to me, though I found it to be more of an annoyance as I had not discovered it sooner.

Manipulating the water into any shape I wanted became a second nature for me, and became much more dangerous for my enemies when I was finally able to control the state of the water. I could now make water boil and freeze in less than a second with just a thought. With another thought I could form the water into the shape I want, a spear for instance, and control it mentally. I found out that my ranged attacks became much better due to this as my mental control was good enough to hit the bulls-eye of multiple targets without even having to see them.

Thanks to the memories, I also discovered how much water saturated the air, even in the driest areas. I took to using the water as a million little hands that would allow me to float in the air, which was cool even though it required more concentration when I thought. It was through these practices that I realized how powerful my father was for two reason.

One was that pure water was amazing as it didn't conduct electricity. So basically it nullified the biggest weapon Zeus had, which also meant that my father could have taken the throne of Olympus any time he wanted.

The second thing I discovered was that the body was made up of mostly water.

I'll admit I already knew that, but I never gave it much thought until now. When I think about it, I realize how powerful I could have been earlier in my life, how many more people I could have saved with this secret. I did not dwell on it to much, as I also knew how easily this power could be abused. I often practiced on small forest animal, my power allowing me to do anything I wanted. I mastered the basics fairly quickly then moved to practicing in the cities that we occasionally visited.

Lily didn't know that her father would usually patrol the cities at night looking for law-breakers. As you probably guessed, the law-breakers became my new test subjects. I took great pleasure in taking control over the bodies of the scum and forcing them to do my bidding. With much practice, which resulted in all time low rates of crime in the cities we visited, I was able to fully master the ability.

I could now do anything I wanted to a person under my control. Make them dance, explode from the inside(which was a mistake but the guy was a rapist), and even force them to say what I wanted them to. The speech part of the technique was the hardest part, but it came to me in the end. Then came my proudest achievement. I had mastered the technique so I could control others, but I realized that the technique could also be used to control myself.

You may think I am crazy, but self discipline is the greatest technique one can master. I discovered that I could manipulate the water in my own body, becoming more resistant to others using the technique against me while I was at it. With this new knowledge that I discovered on my own much to my satisfaction, I created a whole new way to use the technique. A way that only I have mastered if Ouranos's memories are correct.

After much practice I could enhance my speed and strength with the technique among other things. Whenever I swung my blade, I now unconsciously applied the technique to the arm I was swinging with. This resulted in my strikes being faster and stronger as well as my footwork. The best part was that because I was augmenting my own actions, it took barely any energy to increase my power with a blade that dramatically.

Once I had mastered the technique with my blade, I used it to fly properly. No more millions of tiny hands of water lifting me up. I had the water in my body lift me up into the air, clearly distinguishing me from children of Zeus who needed to control the air to fly in the air.

Once I had finally mastered my water powers, I moved on to my power over the earth and storms. I had scratched the surface of controlling earth when I had fought Gaea, now I dove into the interesting stuff. I quickly discovered that with my power over Earthquakes came with a sense of fractures in the earth. I did not think that it would be as interesting as it turned out to be.

It turned out that due to this sixth sense, I could sense fractures in anything. I found out how useful this was when I was attacking a drakon who had gotten close to camp. Normally I would kill it by stabbing at its eyes. This time I saw all the weak points in its armor and what it would take to shatter that armor. I had smashed the hilt of Riptide against one such weak point that seemed to have more stress points that the other armor plates. The result were astonishing, the armor plate fractured into triangles, leaving the drakon with no defense in that spot.

A few stabs later and there was one less drakon in the world thanks to my power over earth. I also found that it became easier for me to land on the ground for high distances. Just like when I wanted to start an mini-earthquake, I focused on a piece of the ground and willing it to be hard or soft. I could make it as hard as diamond, or as soft as a water bed.

Last but not least I worked on my power over storms. In the past I had merely surrounded myself in a miniature hurricane while fighting. Now that hurricane was much larger and dangerous. Honestly if you aren't an immortal you probably should stay a good twenty yards away. Then maybe you wouldn't die from it.

I also got great pleasure when I found out I could channel storms on Riptide. The blade would be surrounded by a mini typhoon, and anything I hit with the blade would either get blown to pieces, or knocked back a few hundred feet.

Well enough of my powers, you are probably interested in what my daughter was up to.

When we started with the runes, only a few stayed on her lion skin clothes, glowing blue with the power they contained when activated.

These were the runes of protection that I had drilled into her so she would get them perfect. For the first few days we would see how well they would hold up under mock attack. More often than not, the runes would glow to show that they had been activated, but immediately shatter due to some minor flaws in her logic.

We quickly worked through those difficulties, and in less than a week her first protection rune was embedded into her clothing. This particular rune wasn't incredibly complex or powerful at the moment. What made it amazing was the potential it contained. I taught Lily that runes could be altered at will, to encompass more or even less off what their intent was.

This particular rune stood for "Unhittable." At the moment I had her make it so it would only affect ranged attacks, as it takes less energy to do so compare to melee attacks. To see if had worked, I used a blunt arrow and shot it at her from about thirty feet away. When it got close, the arrow's direction was altered to shoot past her.

With her success on that rune, I had her practice changing its range of control on the world. The next few time I shot at her, something different happened each time. The first time the arrow simply stopped before it reached her and dropped to the ground. The second time it combusted, leaving nothing left that could hurt her. For the final arrow, she made it so that it could curve around her and return it point first to whoever shot it at her.

With that display of skill, I knew that she fully understood the potential of runes and moved onto greater and greater ones. As time went on, more and more runes began to appear on her clothing. The runes did not completely cover her clothes though until her fifteen birthday, as the knowledge of the most powerful runes were not shared with her until then.

Since she had already mastered altering runes, the only thing that could hold her back was her own creativity when it came to what the rune would do. My daughter had a brain that could match Annabeth though, not to mention the carefree nature that I possessed. She always found ways for the runes to work in her favor.

While we continued making huge steps on her magical studies, I still set aside plenty of time for teaching her the martial arts with weapons. I decided to keep an even place with the weapons, giving her a new one to learn after she mastered one.

Unlike the bow, knives, and her dagger, I did not grant her a new weapon each time she mastered one. It was little problem for me to do such a thing, but I already knew that she would never use most of those weapons. She had mastered the weapons, she did not like them though. I was content with that knowledge. I would have loved it if she had been able to pick up any weapon and defend herself with it perfectly.

I instead settled for her being able to counter every one of those weapons so their uniqueness did not surprise her. On average she would take about two months to completely learn about a new weapon. She could fight with all of them if she had wanted to, but she definitely knew how to stop them.

When her ninth birthday finally came around, I decided to introduce her fully to our world. I gave her a set of books written completely in Greek that detailed everything that had happened since the gods came into being. I was not kidding about the everything part either. All the dirty secrets of past kings, the mistakes of the gods, and the deeds of every unsung hero was in them.

Well, the Greek ones at least. I would introduce her to the Roman aspects of the gods after she fully understood the actions of the Greek ones. It turned out that day came sooner than I had ever expected. She had managed to deduce sixth months later about the Roman aspects even without reading anything about them. As a reward, I gave her the Roman aspect of the books as well, and told her that she could tone down on the reading portion of her studies.

I did not want her to become too overwhelmed as battle training, magic training, and all the history of the world could do that to a person. For her ninth birthday I took my daughter hunting with me for the first time.

I was saddened to see that she was growing up, but I knew that it would happen no matter what I did. So in acceptance I decided that this was the best way to introduce her to the more dangerous part of the world. I took many more precautions than I normally would and probably more than I should have when I went hunting with Lily. Her getting hurt was the one thought I couldn't stand, so all those precautions were so that it would be prevented.

We only hunted down monsters that traveled alone or in pairs. I always could have easily destroyed them, but this was something I wanted Lily to learn about even though I was loathe to put her in any danger.

Between myself and Mrs O'Leary, we eased Lily into monster fighting as gently as possible. One of us was alway watching her as she fought, ready to come to her aid at a moment notice.

Though it was incredibly stressful to fight like that, Lily's excitement about the whole thing made it worth it in the end.

Well back to what I was learning I guess. I had already used quite a bit of the powers I discovered in Tartarus in, well Tartarus.

Increased eyesight, flashing anywhere I wanted, empowering Riptide, mentally controlling Riptide, well, you get the idea. I knew that for the most part, my power was only limited by my imagination.

Since I had just finished mastering my water powers, I decided that the best thing to do would be to work on my other link to the past, Riptide. I had noticed when I was down in Tartarus that while I still loved the blade, it was becoming a bit small for me.

It would occasionally fell like an over-sized knife instead of the blade I had grown up with. I was originally afraid I would have to take up another blade when I got to the mortal world again. Fortunately, this was not the case anymore.

I concentrated on Riptide and it glowed once again, though not as brightly as usual. Under my now expert eyes, the blade elongated itself until it was now four and a half feet of Celestial Bronze, with the hilt now just long enough for both of my hands. Instead of a large short sword, I now held a hand-and-a-half sword in my hands. The blade would allow for both one-handed and two-handed fighting with ease.

The longer reach would also be an advantage with my new speed and strength to keep my opponents at bay. Please with the way the blade looked, I now turned my attention towards increasing its power. I wanted it to be my symbol of power for when I returned, so I took the first step into making it so.

I let Ouranos's...no...I let _my _power flow into the blade and interact with the immortal power of Zoe Nightshade. The blade began to glow brighter than it ever had before, then the metal itself began to shimmer and move. After a few minutes the glow died down, and I got the first good look at my future symbol of power.

The blade was now made of imperial silver, which would conduct my power even more so than Celestial Bronze, not to mention be more dangerous. I looked closer at the blade, and almost dropped it in shock. After a few deep breaths I calmed down enough to focus fully on the sword again.

I saw the Greek name for Riptide was now flowing across the blade in an endless pattern, from hilt to the tip of the sword. Its path was never the same as it kept snaking around the different symbols that seemed to move across the blade, though they did not move as fast as the words. I saw the symbol of the sky on the blade first, which made sense as I had absorbed the power of the primordial of the sky.

What didn't make sense where the other symbols. I stared at one, which was an hourglass, and I _heard_ Riptide speak in my mind.

"Time," echoed through my head. I was so startled I almost dropped the blade again. As I looked at the other symbols, the same thing happened.

"Justice," came when I looked at the symbol of a blade with banners hanging from both sides of the hilt.

"Swordsmanship," as I saw a person wielding a blade in a perfect stance.

"Magic," as I stared at a glowing crescent moon. Those were all of the large symbols, I quickly glanced over the several smaller ones and was told loyalty, courage, and friendship in that order.

"What was that about?" was my comment as I shook my head, thinking I was in Morpheus's realm. I looked at the blade again, and for the third time in less than an hour I almost dropped the blade in shock. I saw all three fates reflected in the blade, but as I looked around hurriedly I realized I was still alone. I looked back at the blade and met the eye of them all somehow.

"This is your future if you prove yourself." The spoke in unison.

"Prove myself how?" was my more than reasonable response. I knew that such power would come at a cost and I was not sure I wanted to pay that cost.

"You must defy fate Perseus Jackson. You must do something that we have never allowed. Only then, will you take your rightful place in the world." As their image faded from the blade, I felt a very strong desire to curse out the ladies for leaving me with another riddle.

The obvious part of what they said was that I would become the Primordial god of the Sky, Swordsmanship, Time, Justice, and Magic. I would probably have the power level of an Olympian over loyalty, courage, and friendship, which was still no mean feat. The only other part I understood was that to claim those domains, I had to defy the fates.

I had an inkling of what needed to happen, but I would make no assumptions until then. Back on track with what I do know, I was still trying to practice with the power I already had.

With Riptide already in its first stage, I had taken my first step to becoming a Primordial god. Now I had to make sure I was not overwhelmed with the new power I would be wielding. I spent quite a long time mastering my other power which was shockingly similar to training with my power over water.

I just needed creativity and the rest would fall into place. Channeling my power through Riptide, flashing wherever I wanted to go, those had just been the tip of the iceberg. But enough about me, my daughter has been busy as well.

Another year passed before I knew it, and my beautiful daughter turned ten. This was a milestone birthday for both her and me. For her, she was now in the double digits, almost grown up. A belief that I reinforced when I showed her the gift this year.

An imperial silver sword fashioned by my own hands. Three feet long and perfectly balanced as she had picked the trait up from me. The blade itself was blank, but that would changed in the future when runes where placed on it. The hilt was another matter as I had spared no expense in its creation. The hand grip was wrapped in silver wire that was enchanted to mold itself to the wielder's grip. The base of the hilt had a large ruby that would act as storage for any excess magical power my daughter had. I had taught her the method of transferring power to items like gems to be accessed at a later time a few days before her birthday in preparation for this. The cross-guard had vines etched across it, with the same permanent rune etched in the middle on both side by my own hands.

The rune literally meant focus, and would cause the sword to amplify her power whenever she wielded it. I did not make her a sheathe for the blade though. Instead, as an additional birthday present I taught her the art of trapping items into other objects. Note-cards, jewelery, even tattoos would all work with this magic. After learning the technique, she decided to stored the blade in a simple silver ring that she wore on her left hand.

The ring was originally plain and blank, but after the magic took effect a detailed etching of it appeared on the ring. Whenever she wanted it, she closed her hand loosely and the blade would appear in it. Now that Lily had a blade of her own, I changed the focus of her combat lessons with me. Before, I had shown her how to wield the many weapons she knew about in a defensive manner. It was expected that she would pick up some offensive move from my teachings, but I never truly encouraged her to learn them until now. Even when we went out monster hunting, the few monsters she had killed had exhausted themselves trying to break through her defenses first. I once again took her through all the weapons she had mastered in a defensive manner and showed off their full capability.

It went by quickly as she already knew the weapons well, so I was able to focus on teaching her my strongest skill, swordsmanship. Soon that was the only weapon we practiced during her lessons, though she would occasionally work with others on her free time. She quickly learned how versatile it was to fight with a sword compared to all the other weapons. It is unique in the fact that only your imagination can hold you back when trying to overwhelm an opponent.

After I felt she had graduated to intermediate level of swordsmanship, I encouraged her to place runes on the blade of the sword. Unlike the runes on her clothes, these runes were silver and blended in perfectly with the blade. In addition to the focus runes already there, she added runes for fire and lightning along with many others. The runes did exactly as they were suppose to, and it was not unusual for her to set her blade on fire while dueling me or cause lighting to erupt from where our blades met.

I did allow her to place runes increasing the speed of her blade on its accuracy on it, but I did not let her use those runes during our duels. I did not want her to become to dependent on magic if I could help it. I spent the next two years teaching her everything she needed to know about combat magic, and swordplay. When her twelfth birthday finally came, I was watching her practicing with her blade in our make-shift arena.

I could honestly not believe how much she has changed of the years. She still wore the Nemean Lion skin clothes I crafted for her, but now runes covered more than half of it. The same held true with her blade as well, but you had to look closely to see that. She had also decided to name the blade shortly after her eleventh birthday. Despite the difficulty of doing such a thing magically, she managed to pull it off all by herself.

She called it Even Star, and obtained a magical mastery over the blade none could match because of that. Even Star would only obey her now and forever more. She had come so far in the past years and grown up so much I teared up a bit inside, but I kept my face calm for her.

"Lily," I told her, "I is time for you to take the final step in your training."

"The final step?" she asked me.

"Yes. The final step. The point in your life when you kill a monster on your own." I told her gently.

With pride in my eye she processed what I said and didn't ask about what she was fighting or how she should fight it, but instead asked, "How is this the final step dad? I feel like there is so much more I do not know."

"Let me rephrase," I told her. "You have learned all you can from me daughter. Once you kill this monster, you and I will walk side by side at long last. You will have to further your own skills and knowledge on your own. Though I will always be there to help you if needed."

"Thanks dad," she smiled, "Should we get this over with?" I smiled at her a merely gestured, flashing her into the middle of a dark forest while I watched from on top of a large rock, invisible to all.

She waited for a few moments taking in the lay of the land, and making sure nothing would be able to ambush her. Just then the wind picked up and she could smell the scent of monster, and of barbecue. She quietly began making her way towards the monster camp I knew to be in that direction. The runes on her clothes dimming as she willed them to and drew her bow silently, notching an arrow in preparation. A dozen more steps placed her right outside the monster camp, a few more and some climbing into a tree gave her the high ground. She silently observed the camp while I did the same with my daughter. She looked thoughtful as she came up with a plan, causing two more arrows to appear and signaling the end of her planning session.

She drew back her bow and fired all three arrows at once. Barely checking to see if they hit, and already drawing back three more, she fired again, and again. In less than two seconds the monster camp was in an uproar. In less than ten they were making their way to my daughter who had already managed to take out half of the monsters. Leaping down from her branch and into the camp, Lily grabbed her throwing knifes from their sheaths and threw as she ran past many monsters. Many of them simply gaped at her as she ran past, while others simply dissolved.

Eventually the monsters closed in on her, and she drew her blade. The runes on it were glowing bright enough to be made out even at my distance, while her clothes did the same and now were glowing brightly. A throwing ax was sent her way, but it bounced off a blue barrier that seemed to surround her.

Pointing her sword down at an angle first, Lily then shouted, "Incatante: Inferno!" She had already raised her empty hand so the palm was facing the monsters. Her blade seemed to gleam brighter and a rune on the blade began to glow brighter than the others. Fire erupted from her palm as she swept it side to side, incinerating all the monsters but the cyclops.

They merely grinned at her before opening their mouths, most likely to brag about their fire resistance. They never got the chance, however. Lily leapt forward, swinging her blade at both of their legs. They collapsed howling in pain, until they were silenced one after another, Lily beheading them both. She was calmly willing her blade back into her ring when I walked up to her beaming.

"It certainly seems that you are ready for your real birthday gift," I told her.

"My real gift?" she asked.

"Yup, you now have my permission to go wherever you want without my or Mrs. OLeary's supervision." She squealed in delight and hugged me after I said that.

"Now help me pack kiddo, we have some traveling to do."

"Where are we going?" she said curiously. We had moved around a few times over the years but not often.

"We are going on a real cross country road trip so you can see the world, and enhance your skills," was my reply.

She had seen quite a bit of the world, but never got to take it all in. She hugged me tightly again, before going to pack up camp. Which goes fairly quickly when everything you really need is in a magical tent.


	15. Chapter 15

Thalia

When we had originally failed to find whoever was responsible for the theft of the golden apples the Hunters had become slightly depressed for awhile.

After all the hardships of the years, it was painful to fail in your first assignment. We had done our best to hide it from Artemis, but I was never sure if we actually managed to fool her or not.

We needn't have worried though. When Artemis had reported our lack of findings to the council, they were very understanding. It used to be surprising to have the gods all agree on something, until Percy had changed up the game of course. Through his actions the council was more united than ever, which meant more things got taken care of.

Our new instructions reflected this mood fairly well. The council had decided that officially, the Hunters would try our best to eliminate all the monsters in the major cities. Unofficially? We would be trying to find any clues to find the prey that had eluded us. There were many reasons for wanting his capture.

Artemis wanted to punish him for assaulting the Hesperides despite how annoying they were.

Most of the council wanted to get this being under Olympian control to avoid any power struggles.

A few, which included myself, Poseidon, and Nico, wanted to talk to this powerful being. After going so long without knowing anything that was happening with Percy, we were becoming desperate for any type of news.

I didn't have high hopes for when we caught up to him, as the total amount of news about Percy had been zero. There was no way that I was going to give up on my cousin though, even if pretty much everyone else had. I couldn't be angry at them though. For someone to spend so long in Tartarus with no word about them, it is to be expected that they would lose hope about that person.

The person I truly could not blame, however, was Annabeth. I did not want her to have to relieve any painful memories that she didn't have to. I also really didn't want to know what would happen to her if Percy did return. If he did not accept the fact that she moved on, it would destroy her emotionally. So you can probably understand where my determination came from now.

I did not want two of my friends to get hurt any more than they already had. I was also determined to spend some alone time with my cousin after so long. I had not really told anyone this, though I assumed that Artemis had realized this from the start, but I had never really wanted to join the hunt. I wanted a family and I wanted people to care about me in a family sort of way. Not the way my jerk of an immortal family cared about me. That way involved debating it was safe enough to let me live so I wouldn't destroy the world.

I knew it was slightly selfish leaving behind the few family members I did have like Percy and Annabeth, but the allure was to strong. I loved my sisters, don't get me wrong. But with the end of the war and the heartbreak of the loss of my sisters, I wanted to spend time with someone who had been though almost exactly what I had been through. The only person that fit that description was Percy. Also, I would never admit it to anyone, I had always had a slight crush on Percy. The way he looked with his gorgeous eyes and messy hair had cause more than just one girl to fantasize about him.

I had counted myself lucky when he showed an interest in Annabeth. It meant that I would not have to worry about doing something I regretted while part of the hunt. Now that he was single ,however, and I was planning on leaving the hunt if he ever came back, it would be a perfect time to see if he had any feelings for me. I knew there was only one problem though and that problem's name was Artemis.

It wasn't that she would be furious that I had fallen for a guy, though she probably would be. It was that she would be furious that I had fallen for this particular guy, the guy that she also had feelings for. She thought she could hide it from everybody. But she couldn't hide it from me and I doubt she could hide it from Aphrodite. The only reason that no one had noticed was the only time she ever showed something was when it was just the Hunters.

The other girls had not noticed anything, probably because they didn't want to. It was clear to me though, that Artemis had fallen hard for Percy. He was the only man we ever talked about in the hunt due to him gaining the respect of Artemis, and every-time his adventures were mentioned Artemis would smile slightly for some time, before her expression became conflicted with anger and sadness clear in her eyes.

The others attributed it to the sad parts of the stories that were being told, I on the other hand saw through my mistress clearly. She clearly had feeling for Percy, but her cold and logical side would kick in and drag her into an emotional debate that left no clear winner. I could only imagine the inner debate she would have when she realized that man she was interested in had her closest friends attention as well.

I had no idea at the time how crazy some of those debates could be, but I learned quickly how to appreciate the depths of my mistress's thoughts.

Artemis

We were currently tracking an unusual being across the country. At least we thought it was a single being as the the signs all pointed to that. Admittedly there were almost no signs at all for this prey which made our assumptions somewhat close to useless.

The only way we had gotten this far had been the daughter of Hecate we had picked up on our travels. She was not part of the hunt, though I was doing my best to convince her, but her help was invaluable.

The only trace that our prey had left behind was a slight aura of magic. According to the girl the magic residue we often found was generally a month old. Sometimes older, sometimes younger than that. A normal person would have called off the hunt, which I was prepared to do. That was until our guide explained how powerful our prey was for the magic residue to last that long.

Even though it seemed that we never made any progress on this hunt, we still persevered. My instincts went wild every-time we reached one of the places that this being had stayed. I knew from that reaction that this being was the same person who had evaded us at the Gardens. My instincts were never wrong. I also knew that everyone had expected me to punish this being for assaulting the Nymphs of Twilight, but that couldn't be farther from the truth.

I never could stand those nymphs for what they had done to Zoe, so they were the exception to the rule I had against a man striking a woman. The truth was that I had a good feeling that this being, this man, could give me information about the most complex thing in my life, Percy. When he saved me from Atlas all those years ago, I could not help but respect him.

It was rare for anyone to take the sky from its bearer no matter what the reason. I had kept a distant eye on him the next few years, mostly to make sure my respect for him was not misplaced. He did not disappoint, he remained faithful to Annabeth and treated all but the vilest women with respect which was perfectly alright with me.

With his victory over Kronos and later learning about how he had convinced Poseidon to help in the fight against Typhon, my respect for him had reached a height that only a few on my hunters had obtained over the years.

When he was moved over to the Roman camp before the Giant war had started, I could not help but feel worried about his safety. At the time I had convinced myself that it was worry about the possibility of being without the savior of Olympus in the coming war. It was only after he had saved me once again from Gaea's earthy grasp that I realized that I had been fooling myself. I was attracted to another son of Poseidon.

I often had debates with myself about my feeling, usually trying to compare Percy to the scum Orion. Needless to say, my efforts were in vain. I found myself becoming more and more attracted to Percy as I compared him to his scum brother. When I finally realized what I had done, it was far to late. I had elevated Percy to a level that would be impossible for any other man to obtain, for Percy was in a class all of his own.

I had hoped to keep my feelings about Percy to myself, and as such took the utmost precaution whenever I was around Aphrodite to not think about him. What I had not counted on was for one of my hunters to find out about my feelings. When I discovered that Thalia knew about my attraction to Percy, I was shocked. I had not meant to read Thalia's thoughts, but things just happen sometimes.

I was originally worried about my secret getting out and was going to approach Thalia right after I discovered that she knew. That was until I looked deeper into her mind. I was planning on seeing how long she had known and if anyone else knew. I did not expect her to have the same feelings for the same man that I was currently having these accursed feelings for.

That became the start of new debates that I wrestled with even more than the previous ones. Who would Percy pick? I could not help but feel that was unfair to him as he would have to make a huge choice that would leave someone very hurt. I eventually came to the decision that I would not really mind if I had to share Percy with Thalia if he could not make up his mind. The only thing I had to do now was pass the idea through Thalia, though I had no idea how to do that.

I decided to put off talking to her about all my crazy thought once I made sure that only she knew about my secret. Probably not the best idea for a healthy relationship with one of your best friends, but I told myself that even if we manage to find out the status of Percy Jackson that there was no guarantee that we would see him any time soon.

Why cause drama when there might not be a need for it right?


End file.
